Outsiders can't decide on Syria - Putin
SYRIA: President Vladimir Putin defended Russia's policy of
non-intervention in Syria by saying that outsiders have no right to
interfere in other countries and decide who rules.
"We believe that nobody has the right to decide for other nations who
should be in power and who should not," Putin told reporters after a G20
summit in the Mexican beach resort of Los Cabos.
"It is not changing the regime that is important, but that after
changing the regime, which should be done constitutionally, violence is
stopped and peace comes to the country," he said.
Putin said all sides should sit down and work things out beforehand.
And, in a veiled reference to simmering unrest in Libya in the wake
of the NATO-backed ouster of now-slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi, added:
"Unlike in some North African countries where violence goes on even
after regime change." Putin's forthright remarks came the day after he
joined US President Barack Obama in calling for an "immediate" end to
the Syria conflict.
"In order to stop the bloodshed in Syria, we call for an immediate
cessation of all violence," the two leaders said in a statement after
meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit of the world's
leading economies.
"We are united in the belief that the Syrian people should have the
opportunity to independently and democratically choose their own
future," the leaders said.
AFP
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