BEIJING: China expressed hope on Tuesday that a visit by Russia’s top diplomat to Damascus would pay off, after a rare double veto of a UN resolution on Syria by Beijing and Moscow triggered international fury.

China also said it was considering sending its own envoys to the Middle East to help resolve the conflict in Syria, which opposition groups say has cost at least 6,000 lives so far.

Thirteen countries, including Pakistan, voted on the UN Security Council resolution on Saturday, which aimed to give strong backing to the Arab League’s plan to end a deadly government crackdown on protesters in Syria and demanded Syrian President Bashar alAssad to step down.

“We hope the mediation efforts by the Russian side can pay off,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said, ahead of a visit to Damascus by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “China is also considering sending people to relevant countries in the region so as to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the Syrian issue.”

The Russian and Chinese vetoes came hours after the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) reported a “massacre” in the central flashpoint city of Homs with more than 230 civilians killed during an overnight assault by regime forces.

The double veto drew international condemnation, with Syria’s opposition saying Beijing and Moscow had handed President alAssad’s regime a “licence to kill”.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused China and Russia of “protecting the brutal regime in Damascus”, calling their veto of the resolution a “travesty”.

Russia’s Lavrov has said that the resolution wrongly blamed Assad’s regime alone for the violence and that the text should have also taken aim at the opposition.

He has not divulged the nature of his mission, although analysts have said that he may be intending to persuade Assad to take steps towards stepping down in favour of a deputy, in line with a plan set out by the Arab League.