MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said the confronting sides in Syria should find a peaceful way out of the crisis through mediation of the international community.

"No matter how difficult it is, we should find points of contact, facilitate their reaching agreements, find a balance of interests. Then the situation in the country might stabilize for some time and perhaps even improve," Putin said Thursday at the 10th meeting of the Valdai club, an international forum to debate on Russia and its role in the world.

He reminded that the West has ignored similar Russian proposals when the NATO-led coalition was preparing operations in Iraq.

Putin noted that ignoring Russian warnings has prompted the Iraqis to continue to suffer up to date.

He also took the situation in Libya as another example of consequences of an ill-planned foreign intervention into a country's domestic conflict.

"I am not saying that there was a correct and balanced regime (in Libya). Gaddafi devised his own political theory, and it does not mean that it was right to apply it (to Libya) for another hundred years. But the methods that were used to sort out this problem failed and are highly likely to fail in the future," Putin said.

Last weekend, Washington and Moscow struck a deal to place Syrian chemical arms under international control in a bid to avert a U.S. military strike on the embattled Middle Eastern country. But in subsequent days the United States and Russia have been at odds over the agreement's enforcement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday dismissed calls for a UN resolution authorizing military force against Syria if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fails to comply with plans to secure chemical weapons, arguing that such an appeal amounted to a "lack of understanding" of the plan. (Xinhua)