Bashar Ja'afari, the Syrian permanent representative to the UN, on Monday attempted to stop a UN General Assembly meeting on recent events in his country on the basis of an alleged violation of assembly procedures, but was overruled.

While stating his objections before the assembly at the start of Monday's session, Ja'afari said that the president of the General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, called the meeting based on a "political paradigm which is totally irrelevant to established practice" as well as prior assembly resolutions.

"Therefore, my delegation objects to the convening of this meeting and calls to cancel it because there is a core violation in the procedural mechanisms on which the meeting was held and because there was a legal violation that also violates the procedures that govern the work of the General Assembly," said Ja' afari.

The meeting was set to discuss a report of the Human Rights Council (HRC) on Syria that was adopted during a special session of the HRC on Dec. 2, 2011 with 37 nations in favor, four against, and six abstentions.

The HRC report strongly condemns "continued widespread, systematic, and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" committed by the Syrian authorities and invites UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support the Arab League (AL) in its actions on the matter.

Ja'afari insisted that based on the General Assembly's rules, the report of the HRC special session should be discussed in the 67th session of the assembly, not in the current session, the 66th, which will be closed in September.

"We cannot, while we gather here under the ceiling of the General Assembly, the most democratically representative institution, we cannot manipulate procedural regulations for political gains," he said. "Here I appeal to you, my brother, Mr. President, to be fair, objective, and just and not to allow history to record that under your presidency the rules of procedures were violated as well as the mechanisms by which meetings in the General Assembly are organized, because this will undermine the credibility of the General Assembly and the organization of the United Nations in general."

Ja'afari's statement was supported by representatives from Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, who both took the floor at the General Assembly to argue that the Monday session violates the procedure of the assembly.

After statements had been made, Al-Nasser, who is from Qatar, asked to go on with the meeting on the HRC report, and heard no objections from the assembly.