Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said the only solution to the crisis in Syria lies in supporting the effective government structures and helping them in fighting terrorism.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said the only solution to the crisis in Syria lies in supporting the effective government structures and helping them in fighting terrorism.

In an interview with the American CBS TV channel, Putin called for establishing a wide coalition against terrorism in cooperation with the Syrian government, stressing that Russia continues supporting Syria militarily to that effect and in accordance with the military contracts signed between the two countries.

“It’s my deep belief that any actions to the contrary in order to destroy the legitimate government will create a situation which you can witness now in the other countries of the region or in other regions, for instance in Libya, where all the state institutions are disintegrated. We see a similar situation in Iraq,” Putin said.

He asserted that “there is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism.”

“It’s only the Syrian people who are entitled to decide who should govern their country and how,” Putin added in the interview, whose full text will be published next Sunday.

Earlier on Thursday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that Syria’s fate should be decided only by its people and that President Bashar al-Assad cannot be excluded.