The attempts to establish a one-polar world order have failed, and the balance on the international arena restores, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with a weekly program on the NTV channel. "The situation is changing," he said. "I think, it is not a secret now, everyone can see many our counterparts prefer using norms of the international law, as the balance int he world is restoring gradually," TASS quoted him as saying.
"The attempts to establish the uni-polar world have failed," the president said. "We now live in a different dimension. We, I mean Russia, always followed the understanding that while protecting own national interests we should respect interests of others," he said. "This is how we shall develop our relations with all our counterparts."
Putin continue by saying, in the modern world people "listen to those, whose voice is loud enough to be heard. But if this is a minor element in the international relations, then, of course, a good face is possible, but the game anyway won’t be good towards those who are not considered sufficiently big partners," he said.
The Arab Spring and its negative consequences for the region were possible after the world’s key countries refused to observe norms of the international law to satisfy their geopolitical interests, Vladimir Putin said.
The president said, Academician Yevgeny Primakov (politician, diplomat, was prime minister 1998-1999) had warned about possible ruining consequences from the Arab Spring - a wave of protests which rolled across the Arab World in 2011 and cased coups in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, the civil wars in Libya and Syria, mass disorders in Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Oman and other countries. "Using his knowledge about the region, and especially about the Middle East, using the experience and intuition, he could foresee a lot and he foresaw negative consequences from the upcoming Arab Spring," Putin said about Primakov. "No doubt, if his opinion was considered back then, this development of the situation might have not happened."
Putin continued, saying at that time Russia’s opportunities to influence the situation were limited. "We could not influence directly and practically development of events, or our opportunities to influence those events were rather limited," he said. "Especially since key players on the international arena preferred already not to observe norms of the international law, but preferred to follow their own geopolitical interests and those were cornerstones of their practical activities on the international arena.".
According to him, US President-elect Donald Trump is a clever person and he is confident that he will realize the high level of his responsibility in the new position.
"Trump used to be a businessman and an entrepreneur; today he is a state official, today he is head of the United States of America, a leading country in the world, a leading economy, a leading military country," Putin said.
"Since he (Trump) could be successful in business - this proves he is a clever person," the Russian president said "And, being a clever person, he will also quite soon realize the other level of responsibility."
