Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Assad will have to leave power if he fails to implement reforms acceptable to the opposition.
"Russia wants as much as the other countries for Syria to end the bloodshed and demands that the Syrian leadership conduct the necessary reforms," Medvedev said in televised remarks.
"If the Syrian leadership is unable to undertake these reforms, it will have to go. But this is something that has to be decided not by NATO or individual European countries but by the people and the leadership of Syria," he said.
Russia vetoed the UN Security Council sanctions resolution against its Soviet-era ally on Tuesday after arguing that moves aimed against the Syrian leadership could encourage protesters to resort to violence.
Medvedev said the most recent decision on Syria was in large part influenced by the NATO-led campaign in Libya that Russia opposed but refused to block at the Security Council in March.
"Russia will continue standing against attempts to legitimise through the UN Security Council unilateral sanctions aimed at toppling various regimes," he said.
"This is not what the UN was created for," said Medvedev.
"In essence, the text that was being proposed was a text that once again permitted the use of force," he stressed.
In the ongoing violence Kurdish activist and opposition spokesman Meshaal Tamo, 53, was killed when four masked gunmen stormed his house in Qamishli in the north and opened fire, also wounding his son and another fellow activist in the Kurdish Future Party, activists said.
Assad's regime is escalating its tactics against the opposition with bold, daylight attacks on its leaders, the US State Department charged.Read more
