As deadly fighting raged in the Syrian capital Damascus and the country's second city of Aleppo, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned the Security Council for its failure to act and slammed President Bashar Al Assad’s use of "heavy weapons" in the nearly 17-month conflict.

The regime is using jet fighters and helicopter gunships to fight rebel forces.

The deadlock in efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria could be directly attributed to the conflicting positions adopted by the big powers in the UN Security Council. The UN, which was created with the mandate of maintaining world peace and intervening whenever necessary to ensure world stability, has proved itself to be unable to shoulder its responsibilities.

This was emphasised by the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on Friday.

The resolution said members deplored “the Security Council failure to agree on measures” to make the Syrian government carry out UN demands to end the fighting.

The resolution condemned the Syrian regime’s use of “heavy weapons including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters.”

The 133 votes in favour of the resolution – with 12 countries against and 31 abstaining – showed that an overwhelming majority of countries are against the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown against dissent. But the international community is unable to do anything on the ground to check the violence.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country opposes effective UN Security Council action in the Syrian crisis, contended that the resolution gave “blatant” support to Syrian rebels and that its backers were the countries providing “mercenaries and arms” to the opposition.

Well, Churkin conveniently failed to mention that it is the support that his country offers – along with China and Iran – that emboldens the Syrian regime to continue its violence against the Syrian people. Russian and Chinese support for Syria at the UN means no serious Security Council intervention to end the crisis.

Moscow “is very worried by the dangerous development in the situation, the violence and provocations aimed at expanding the scope and the cruelty in the civil war,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday. Again, it is the Syrian regime that has expanded the war by introducing jet fighters and attack helicopters into the conflict and Russia had supplied the aircraft and other weapons that the state security forces have unleashed against the people.

In any event, Friday’s UN General Assembly resolution has gone into record as an expression of international condemnation of the Syrian regime’s violent crackdown. Very little in practical action could be expected from the UN. Any solution to the crisis in Syria has to come from outside the UN.