Russia nixes delegation on Syria

David Jackson | USA TODAY

Members of the U.S. Congress won't have to worry about hearing from the Russians over Syria.

The Russian government has announced it will not be sending a parliamentary delegation to Washington, D.C., to lobby against a military strike on Syria because of chemical weapons.

One reason: A bipartisan pair of congressional leaders -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio -- said they wouldn't meet with the Russians on Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who again voiced his opposition to force in Syria while hosting this week's G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, had proposed sending his lawmakers to the United States.

Reports CBS News:

"The speaker of Russia's national legislature said Friday that a plan to send a parliamentary delegation to Washington to try and convince U.S. lawmakers that a unilateral military intervention in Syria would be unwarranted and counterproductive had been canceled.

"Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the State Duma, said the delegation would no longer travel to the U.S. and called the decisions by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to refuse to meet their Russian counterparts deplorable. ...

"'We are really disappointed by their decision not to meet with their Russian colleagues,' said Russian Embassy spokesman Maxim Abramov on Thursday after the U.S. congressmen made their decisions public."