Ilves to Euronews: Russia has ‘bombed its way to Syria negotiating table’
"Last year, in 2015, we saw Putin move into Syria, basically bombing his way to the negotiating table by simply unilaterally going in," Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in an interview to Euronews.
"Well, you invade Ukraine, you bomb Syria, and then you bomb your way to the negotiating table," Ilves said in response to a question if Russian President Vladimir Putin can be perceived as a peace negotiator. "How can you be a peace negotiator if you are the one who initiated the entire problem in the first place? As I said, you become an unavoidable partner because you have created the problem, and then you say ‘I created a problem, now you have to talk to me’. I wouldn’t use the term ‘peace negotiator’ there."
Read the full interview here.
The interview was conducted in Davos, where the president took part in a discussion concerning the economic future of Ukraine at the World Economic Forum.