ST. PETERSBURG, June 17. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Western attempts to force other countries to live by some rules instead of international law are nonsense.
"What we are hearing now is about behaving or living by the rules," he said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. "What rules? Who made them? What kind of nonsense is that? There are just these rules that need to be followed: They are international public law."
The president said that international law is about agreements between countries that are signed by them and are a kind of compromise. "And if someone draws up their own rules to subsequently impose them on other countries, then they will never work, and that’s completely obvious," Putin said.
The president also expressed the opinion that sooner or later the entire international community "will come to understand that life should be not according to rules invented by someone, but according to the norms of international law."
"We are ready to work along those lines," Putin said.
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum organized by the Roscongress Foundation is running from June 15 to 18. This year’s forum is dubbed ‘New Opportunities in a New World’. The SME Forum, the Creative Business Forum, the Drug Security Forum, the SPIEF Junior Dialogue and SPIEF Sport Week are also going to be part of the SPIEF event. TASS serves as the event’s official photo hosting agency and the information partner.