The United States, Britain and France have opposed a Russian-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have condemned an attack on Iran’s embassy compound in Syria, which Tehran has blamed on Washington’s ally Israel, Reuters reports.

Press statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed by consensus. Diplomats said the US, backed by France and Britain, told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear and there was no consensus among council members during a meeting on Tuesday.

“This serves as a clear illustration of the double standards employed by the Western ‘troika’ and their actual, rather than declarative, approach to legality and order in the international context,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said in a post on X.

The UNSC has issued statements in the past condemning attacks on diplomatic premises. The European Union on Wednesday condemned the strike — saying the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected — and called on countries to show restraint.

The 1961 Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations and 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations define premises as buildings, parts of buildings and land — regardless of ownership — used for the purposes of the diplomatic or consular mission, including the head of the diplomatic mission.

Those conventions state that the diplomatic or consular premises “shall be inviolable.” But they also say the premises should “not be used in any manner incompatible” with the diplomatic and consular functions.