Russia wants global fight against terrorism, Putin says

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia wants to fight terrorism jointly with the rest of the world, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published on Monday, Jan 11, while again accusing the West of exacerbating international crises that had contributed to it.

"We are faced with common threats, and we still want all countries, both in Europe and the whole world, to join their efforts to combat these threats, and we are still striving for this," Putin said in a wide-ranging interview with Germany's Bild newspaper, according to Reuters.

"I refer not only to terrorism, but also to crime, trafficking in persons, environmental protection, and many other common challenges," he said.

"Yet this does not mean that it is us who should agree with everything that others decide on these or other matters."

Russia's air force is attacking targets in Syria and Moscow says it aims to undermine Islamic State, which has been joined by thousands of Russian citizens and now poses a serious threat to national security. The group claimed responsibility for downing a Russian airliner over Egypt in October, killing 224 people.

But Russia has not joined a U.S.-led coalition carrying out strikes on Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and Washington and its allies say Moscow's strikes are only aimed at helping embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stay in power.

Putin said previous Western military interventions in Iraq and Libya had contributed to an upsurge in terrorism in these countries and elsewhere, reiterating what he had told the United Nations General Assembly in September.

He hit out at NATO's expansion toward Russia's borders after the Soviet Union's demise in 1991 and at an anti-missile shield being erected by the United States, accusing the West's expansion after the Cold War of exacerbating international crises.

On the economic front, Putin acknowledged that the country's economy had been hard hit by the plunge in oil prices but also said that there was a positive side insofar as it would force Russia to improve the structure of its public finances.

"I believe that our non-oil and gas deficit had risen to a very dangerous level. So now we are forced to lower it. And this is healthy," he said.

"It is very difficult ... to resist spending oil and gas revenues to cover current expenses. (But) it is the reduction of these expenses that improves the economy."