Syria asked the UN to prevent "any aggression" against Syria following a call over the weekend by US President Barack Obama for punitive strikes against the Syrian military for last month’s chemical weapons attack

Syria asked the UN to prevent "any aggression" against Syria following a call over the weekend by US President Barack Obama for punitive strikes against the Syrian military for last month's chemical weapons attack.

US military action will be put to a vote in Congress, which ends its summer recess on September 9.

In a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and President of the Security Council Maria Cristina Perceval, Syrian UN envoy Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari called on "the UN Secretary General to shoulder his responsibilities for preventing any aggression on Syria and pushing forward reaching a political solution to the crisis in Syria", state news agency SANA said on Monday.

He called on the Security Council to "maintain its role as a safety valve to prevent the absurd use of force out of the frame of international legitimacy".

Ja'afari said the United States should "play its role, as a peace sponsor and as a partner to Russia in the preparation for the international conference on Syria and not as a state that uses force against whoever opposes its policies".