PETERHOF, September 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said opinions of world leaders attending the G20 summit in St. Petersburg were divided in halves over the issue of the Syria conflict settlement.
“A number of states maintained the stance on the necessity of hasty measures ignoring any legitimate international institutions,” Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for the Russian president, said following a working dinner, which capped the first day of the summit.
“A number of other states called against the depreciation of the international law and to remember that only the UN Security Council has the right to make decisions on the use of force,” he said.
Peskov added that after the dinner Putin held a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron and they particularly discussed the Syrian conflict among other international and bilateral issues.
The issue of the Syrian conflict was not on the agenda of the G20 summit but UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon addressed the issue during the working dinner late on Thursday night.
US President Barack Obama recently asked the US Congress to support a limited military intervention in Syria because of the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons, which the US claims killed over a thousand civilians in one attack last month.
Russia has repeatedly insisted that the United Nations is the only body that can legitimate military action in Syria, where at least 100,000 people have been killed since fighting broke out between government forces and rebels in March 2011.
