NEW YORK, September 12 (Itar-Tass) - The New York Time has published an article by the Russian President Vladimir Putin under the title reading ‘A Plea for Caution from Russia: What Putin has to Say to the Americans About Syria.’
He says that recent events around Syria have prompted him to speak directly to the American people. “It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communications between societies,” Putin writes.
He recalls that relations between Russia and the U.S. “have passed through different stages.”
“We stood against each other during the cold war but we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together,” Putin says. “The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.”
“The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter,” Putin writes.
He underlines the “profound wisdom of this” decision, saying it “underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.”
“No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage,” the article says. Putin warns, however, that “this is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.”
“The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders,” Putin says.
“A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism,” he warns. “It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.
He says that what Syria is witnessing now is a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country.”
There are few champions of democracy in Syria,” he writes.”But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government.”
Putin says that “the U.S. State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations.”
“This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world,” Putin says.
“Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern,” the article says “Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.”