Mongolian authorities must arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to the country next week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said, the BBC reports.
The ICC relies on member states, including Mongolia, to “enforce its decisions”, a court spokesman told the BBC. Fadi el-AbdallahMongolia, like other ICC members, has an “obligation to cooperate with the court,” which also applies to arrest warrants, including against Putin, he noted.
The trip, scheduled for Tuesday, will be Putin’s first visit to a country that has signed the ICC’s Rome Statute since the court ordered his arrest in March 2023. Ukrainian authorities had previously asked Mongolia to arrest Putin during his visit and hand him over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Putin’s press secretary said. Dmitry Peskov He said the Kremlin was not worried about the visit and that all its details “were carefully prepared,” the BBC Russian service reported.
Vladimir Putin’s visit on September 3 will be his first to an ICC member state since an arrest warrant was issued for the Russian president in connection with the expulsion of Ukrainian children in March last year, Bloomberg reports today.
As a signatory to the Rome Statute, Mongolia is obliged to carry out the order and arrest Putin if he appears on its territory, the agency said.
“We have no such problem,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday when asked to comment on whether Mongolia had given assurances it would not comply with the ICC order.
