Putin Urges Europe to Cooperate in Fight against Terrorism

Russia is ready to cooperate with other countries in the fight against terrorism, calls for action rather than "chatting about mutual claims", Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Le Figaro.

"Ask Europe - we want this. I talked about it, speaking on the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, and urged to unite efforts of all countries in fighting terrorism," he said, TASS news agency reported.

At the same time, Putin said that it is often difficult for Russia to conduct a dialogue with European partners, since their position is changing, including after contacts with the United States. According to Putin, the European countries need to figure out "who is senior, who is not, who lays claims to what. We are ready for cooperation," the Russian president said.

Putin noted that recently there has been a certain shift in cooperation with the United States. "We are now thinking how to ensure the interests of all countries in southern Syria. I mean all countries that have problems in this region, namely Jordan, Iraq, Syria itself. Of course, we are ready to listen to the opinion of the United States, our European partners," he said.

"However, we need to conduct a specific dialogue, not chat about some kind of mutual claims and threats, we need to engage in practical work," Putin called.

Relations between Russia and the United States will have a chance to improve when Washington stops using anti-Russian rhetoric in the domestic political struggle, Vladimir Putin said.

"The difficult internal political situation in the United States is based on the desire of those who lost the elections at least somehow to improve their situation at the expense of anti-Russian attacks, by charging Russia with interference," Putin said. "People who lost the election do not want to admit that they really lost, that the one who won was closer to people, he has a better understanding of what people want, ordinary voters want," he said.

"They want to explain and prove to others that their policy was valid, they did everything right, but someone from the outside deceived them. But that is not the case, they just lost and they have to admit it," the Russian President said.

"When this happens, I think it will be easier for us to work together," Putin believes. "But the fact that this is done with the anti-Russian measures is very bad, it introduces dissonance to international affairs," he noted.

 "They could argue among themselves, argue and prove who is cooler, who is better, who is smarter, who is more reliable and who has better policy for the country, why should third countries be involved? It is very sad. But it will pass - everything passes and this too shall pass," Putin said.