(Newswire.net — December 17, 2015) — Moscow, Russia- At his annual press conference, Russian President, Vladimir Putin has spoken about the most important issues concerning Russia.
The first mentioned was Russian economy, which, according to him, has started showing signs of stabilization in spite of the fall of oil prices. it was a direct cause of GDP drop, he said, but despite that, national industries have shown signs of recovery.
Egypt
Russia has stopped air travel with Egypt after the Russian jet crash on Sinai and the decision to suspend flights was made because it was a sign that Russian citizens were not safe while travelling to Egypt. It was by no means a political move, since the Egyptian President showed “great personal courage” in fighting terrorism, Putin said.
It is expected that air travel is restored as soos as two countries decide which measures they are going to apply in order to ensure safety of passengers.
World Cup and Doping
When asked about the alleged corruption scandal at FIFA, he said that Russia had nothing to do with it and that it was “an honest competition” to host the World Cup in 2018. He added that he believed that Sepp Blater’s (FIFA suspended president) contribution to world soccer was worth a Nobel Peace Prize.
On the matter of doping, he said Russia is always willing to cooperate with international organisations, since doping ruins athletes’ health and therefore whoever uses it desrves to be punished. This also means that the ones who don’t use doping should not take the blame and be punished with the ones who do. “Russia must and will be open for a joint fight with doping”‘ he said.
Russia-US relations
Putin said Russia is prepared for improvement when it comes to relationship with the United States, regardless who their next president is going to be. Mentioning his this week’s talks with John Kerry, US Secretary of State he said that Washington is also ready to “move toward settling the issues that can only be settled through joint forces”.
Ukraine
The conflict in Ukraine should be quickly resolved, but it requires local elections to be held, which is up to Ukrainian government who is stalling the issue. If the elections are to be held, Russia might use the influence it has over the rebels in order for compromise to be reached.
A matter of possible exchange of prisoners will be discussed with Ukrainian authorities, although Russia has no regular army in Ukraine, Putin said.
Syria
“We aren’t going to be more Syrian than the Syrians themselves”, Putin said. As soon as Syria decides to stop the war and open negotiations, Russia will stop its military action. Since the new weapons (sea-and-air-launched cruise misslies) are quite capable of destroying ISIS in Syria, there is probably no need for Russia to stay in Syria permanently.
As far as the elections in Syria are concerned, Putin persists that the Syrians must be the ones to decide who will lead their country. Mentioning again his talks with John Kerry, he agreed with the US that a new constitution for Syria has to be created as well as the control over the election, as long as Syrians choose their government. He added that political settlement is the only way to resolve crisis in Syria.
Turkey
President Putin said that at present there is no room for improvement when it comes to Russia-Turkey relations. What stunned him the most was Turkish decision to ask for Nato help instead of explaining its action to Russia first, so there is no will left for accommmodating Turkish interests in the matter.
The conference was over four hours long and eventually had to be stopped.