No plans to punish West with retaliatory sanctions: Putin

Moscow, Sep 18 (IANS/ITAR -TASS) Russia will not pressure the West with sanctions but will pursue its own interests, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

"First of all, we are thinking about our own interests and development goals," Putin said at a meeting of the State Council.

The EU and the US imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia last week, which came despite the fact that the Ukrainian government and rebels inked a ceasefire agreement last week in Minsk, capital of Belarus.

Putin said on the same day after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tajik capital Dushanbe that Moscow was mulling response measures to the sanctions.

Putin noted that the Western countries that adopted sanctions against Russia defied the principles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"The sanctions imposed on Russia are nothing but a departure from the basic WTO principles by some of our partners," Putin stated.

"They violate the principle of all countries' equal access to the markets of goods and services. They ignore the most favoured nation status in trade and the principle of fair and free competition," the Russian leader said.

Last week, US President Barack Obama said the new round of punitive measures was implemented "in light of Russia's actions to further destabilise Ukraine over the last month, including through the presence of heavily armed Russian forces in eastern Ukraine".

--IANS/ITAR-TASS

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