European Union Foreign Ministers on Monday failed to reach an agreement on whether to arm Syria's rebels when an embargo expires at the end of the month.
The EU arms embargo blocks the transfer of weapons to both the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and to the rebel forces.
Britain and France want to relax the embargo in order to allow some weapons flow to the opposition but several member states, including Austria and the Scandinavian countries refuse to allow the arming of the rebels out of fear that this will led to an escalation of the conflict and that the arms could end up in the hands of the growing numbers of radical Islamists joining rebel ranks, such as members of the Al-Nusra Front.
"I regret that after long talks it was not possible to find a compromise with the UK and France. We have no consensus, which means the sanctions regime will not be continued,” Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told journalists in Brussels.
The deadlock means that all EU sanctions on Syria, including the assets freeze and travel ban on Assad and senior Syrian officials as well as the arms embargo, expire on Saturday.
This will enable individual member states to decide whether to keep the restrictions in place.
Britain and France might go it alone in arming the rebels if they decided to do so.