SELIGER, August 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The United Nations needs a reform, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

However, two mandatory preconditions are to be met, the president stressed. "First, the reform should be based on broad consensus, which means that the overwhelming majority of participants should agree with what is going to be reformed. Second, the fundamental principles which make UN efficient should also be preserved such as the rights and prerogatives of the United Nations Security Council, including the right to decide on the imposition of sanctions (against individual states), let alone the use of armed forces,” Putin said.

“It is impossible to wash out these mechanisms. Otherwise, the United Nations will turn into (another) League of Nations,” the president told participants in the Seliger-2014 youth forum in Russia’s Tver region.

Putin agreed that the UN actions were not always effective. He said that Russia, France and Germany were against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. “It is unique that France and Germany were opposed to the US stance together with us. That tells a lot,” Putin said.

“If contemporary European leaders are far from showing independence, it does not mean that the trend itself is dead,” he added. Putin believes that striving for more independence and sovereignty and a desire to have one’s own opinion and defend one’s own stance will keep gaining momentum in European societies. “Regrettably, not all our colleagues in the West have noticed this trend,” the Russian leader stressed.