Putin urges 'common sense' to prevail in spy row

Russian President Vladimir Putin today said that "common sense" must prevail in the row with the West over an ex-spy whose poisoning in Britain has been blamed on Moscow.

"What we expect is that common sense will in the end prevail and there will not be this damage in international relations that we have seen recently," Putin told reporters in Ankara after talks on Syria.

He said common sense should not just apply to the dispute over the Skripal attack "but also all other aspects of international relations".

"We need to act within the framework of healthy political processes that are based on the fundamental norms of international law," said Putin, who attended a three-way summit in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran's Hassan Rouhani.

"Then the situation in the world will become more predictable and stable."