- Speaking about the Army, The situation in Syria seems to have settled more or less. Will there be a big deal with the USA?
Vladimir Putin: You know... What do you mean by "deal?" Sounds like a commercial undertaking. Now it's all about deals. And commerce? No. We don't trade our allies, interests or principles. We can negotiate with our partners to solve this or that urgent problem. One of the issues we are to address together, primarily with the partners the relations with whom have advanced, meaning Turkey, Iran, as well as other countries concerned, primarily, the United States, of course, is the political settlement, the creation and launch of the Constitutional Committee, the regulation for it. Is this solution possible? I believe it is, given the goodwill of all the parties concerned. I've already mentioned some, though there are far more of them. I mean the regional countries — Israel, Egypt, Jordan; European countries, undoubtedly, as they suffer from the migration influx and also seek a settlement. So, everybody should unite their efforts.
- And there's another question on foreign politics from the Odnoklassniki social network. I quote: "The USA accused Iran of attacking tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Will there be a war between America and Iran? Why do they ask you? And what will Russia do?"
- Well, you're right indeed, why do they ask me? Probably, that's because there's no direct line with my counterparts from Iran and other countries. Well, we don't know this. Of course, we want to avoid it. But the United States has announced that it doesn't rule out the use of force. Certainly, it would be a catastrophe, at least for the region, because it would provoke a wave of violence, perhaps, increase the number of refugees from the region. But I think that even for those who'd start all this, it would be fraught with dire consequences. It is very hard to predict what will happen after the use of force. It is really hard because Iran is a Shia country, and in the Islamic world, actually, the Islamic world believes that such people can go into extremes if they need to save themselves, their country, and nobody knows what these extremes can entail and who they will affect. It's hard to predict. We would like to avoid such a scenario. As for Iran as a whole, it fully complies with its agreements with the IAEA, controlling nuclear technologies, doesn't violate anything, and we believe it's groundless to impose sanctions on it.
