MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against US military intervention in Syria without UN Security Council authorization, saying that such an action would risk escalating the conflict beyond that country and unleashing a new wave of terrorist attacks.
The military action “could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilise the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance,” Putin said in an editorial for The New York Times.
However, he welcomed Obama’s consideration of the Russian proposed plan for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons and said his relationship with the US president was marked by “growing trust”.
Putin said that “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States.”