Russia cannot indefinitely block UN on Syria: France

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet slammed Russia on Sunday for blocking a UN Security Council resolution on Syria and said Moscow cannot hold out "indefinitely" in the face of global opinion.

"Russia, for reasons that are almost shameful, is blocking everything," Longuet told RTL radio.

"We have a duty, we Europeans, to show that we will never accept this regime. Russia can hold out for 15 days, two months, but it cannot hold out indefinitely," he said.

Russia and China on Saturday blocked a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its crackdown on protests, drawing condemnation from other global powers and the Syrian opposition.

Amid anti-government protests in Russia, Longuet said authorities in Moscow are "discovering that Russian public opinion will not accept that the country be complicit, particularly through the Syrian affair, in the worst kind of abuses."

"We are isolating the Russian authorities on this question," he said.

"Whether in three weeks or two months, the world will be different, because there is an awareness in major countries that we can longer sit idly by," Longuet said.

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