China's Deputy UN Ambassador Wang Min votes in the United Nations Security Council against referring the Syrian crisis to the International Criminal Court for investigation of possible war crimes, at the UN headquarters in New York, May 22, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua]

Russia, China veto draft UN resolution on Syrian civil war

Also speaking at the council after his vote, Wang Min, the deputy Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, said that China "has serious difficulties" with the draft resolution.

"What is most urgently needed now is to urge the government of Syria and opposition to immediately start a ceasefire and end violence so that the third round of the Geneva negotiations can be resumed to push forward the political process and start the political transition," Wang said.

Little progress has been achieved at the two round of peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva in February this year. The international community is striving for the third round of negotiations in order to bring an end to the Syrian conflict, which has reportedly left some 150,000 Syrian people dead over the past more than three years.

"Under the current circumstances, to forcibly refer the situation of Syria to the ICC is neither conducive to building trust among all the parties in Syria, or to the early resumption of the negotiations in Geneva, it will only jeopardize the efforts made by the international community to push forward the political settlement," he said.

"We believe that at a time when there is a serious divergence of views concerning the draft resolution among all sides, the Security Council should continue to hold the consultations, rather than forcibly push for a vote on the draft resolution, so as not to undermine the unity in the council or obstruct the coordination and cooperation in the council in dealing with the questions such as Syria and other major serious issues," he said.

The Thursday vote came just days before international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi is scheduled to step down on May 31.

"It is clear in this case that no side in this tragedy is innocent," said UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, who was addressing the Security Council on behalf of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.