"Cooperation with Global South is not conditioned by current politics," says Putin

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said that Russia's cooperation with the Global South is not related or conditioned by the current political waves, RT reported.

Putin said that the cooperation is a result of common shared interests.

"Well, a bear is a bear. Well, you mentioned the double-headed eagle looking to the west and the east. Well, there is also south, you know. We've been discussing it with our colleagues repeatedly, and I've always been saying that expansion of our interaction and our joint work with our friends in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.

Putin gave an example, saying that Russia's works with China began 20 years back, and was not influenced by US President Donald Trump's policies.

"Our cooperation with the Global South is not related or conditioned by the current political situation. Take example of my meeting with President Xi. We have started joint work with Presidency 20 years ago," he said.

Putin said that thus, the cooperation is conditioned by mutual shared interests, as per RT.

"And it is not at all conditioned by the current environment. It is conditioned by the mutual shared interests. Our economies complement one another. We're neighbors. We have a lot of shared interests, shared approaches, shared values. Traditional values, by the way, I'd like to emphasize that," he said.

Putin then said that the interaction between Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin was dubbed as dragon-elephant-bear by the media. He said that in the far East, the symbol should be a tiger instead of a bear.

"In fact, the interaction between the dragon and the elephant, it's not something that I said. President Xi used this metaphor and later on the media added the bear to this triad. Of course, bear is a symbol of Russia, but we hear the Far East. And the biggest tiger in the world is the local tiger, the local breed here," he said, as reported by RT.

Putin was referring to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, held on August 31-September 1, which has been in much of a buzz among several world leaders.