‘Russia backs international law, not Assad’ – Putin’s spokesman

Russia isn’t supporting President Bashar Assad in the Syrian conflict, but only seeks adherence to international law, the Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told RT’s SophieCo program, with Snowden, Russia-US relations and G20 also discussed.

Sophie Shevardnadze: President Putin has given a detailed interview explaining Russia’s position on the Syrian conflict, though something remains a little unclear. He said “As soon as Russia gets solid evidence that there was a chemical attack in Syria it will act decisively.” What exactly does that mean?

Dmitry Peskov: The Russian position is very simple, it’s very straightforward and it’s quite obvious. As a matter of fact – and it was said many times by numerous Russian representatives – Russia has never been an advocate of President Assad. Russia has always been an advocate of the supremacy of international law. That is actually what we are trying to explain to our partners: it is a necessity for everyone to stick to the rules and principles of international law. And international law stipulates that the only body that can make use of force against any country legitimately is the United Nations Security Council. And not a single country in the world, not any other international organization can do that.

source rt.com