Video: US ambassador defends calling veto of Syrian resolution 'disgusting and shameful' On Saturday, Ms Rice called Chinese and Russian veto of a UN resolution on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regime "disgusting and shameful." Ms Rice said: "I was expressing what I think is the shared frustration of the Syrian people, the American people, and the publics of countries all over the world represented on that council, that Russia and China by their veto made it impossible for the council to support an Arab League plan for a peaceful democratic transition." The fact that Russia and China chose to align themselves with a dictator who is on his last legs rather than the people of Syria, rather than the people of the Middle East, rather than the principled views of the rest of the international community, was indeed disgusting and shameful and I think that over time it is a decision they'll come to regret when there is a democratic Syria that won't forget this action. Moscow will offer its own mediation - in the person of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and its intelligence chief who are to meet Assad on Tuesday, fulfilling a pledge last week to seek a negotiated end to the bloodshed. "Inaction, in contrast to what Foreign Minister Lavrov said, did not take us any further from civil war, it took us closer," added Ms Rice. Russia, which sells Syria arms and maintains a military base on its coast, maintained that approving the resolution would have fanned the conflict through its failure to blame opposition groups equally for the bloodshed, which the United Nations says it can no longer track after 5,000 deaths. Ms Rice said supplying arms to Syria's government is not illegal, but is immoral. They [Russians] say there isn't an international embargo on arms preventing them from doing that. That is a fact. But that doesn't change the immorality of supplying a dictatorial regime that is killing its people in massive numbers everyday. And we are deeply concerned about that and whatever else may have been motivating the Russian and Chinese decision to align themselves repeatedly with Assad and his brutal tactics," said Rice. Meantime, Syrian forces bombarded Homs on Monday, killing 50 people in a sustained assault on several districts of the city which has become a centre of armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian National Council opposition group said. And the US shut its embassy in Damascus and said all staff had left the country due to worsening security. Britain said it withdrew its ambassador from Syria, and would seek further EU sanctions against Syria.