(Bloomberg) — Russian leader Vladimir Putin is set to meet with Mongolia’s president and other top officials despite calls for his arrest under an International Criminal Court warrant in connection with alleged war crimes.
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Putin will meet President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa on Tuesday after arriving in the country between Russia and China on Monday evening. The two will discuss “issues of relations and cooperation,” the Mongolian government said without elaborating.
The visit is Putin’s first to an ICC member state since the warrant was issued last year over the abduction of children from occupied territories in Ukraine. As a signatory to the Rome Statute that governs the court, Mongolia is obliged to execute the warrant and arrest Putin if he appears on its territory.
Putin has never attempted such a trip before. He skipped last year’s summit in South Africa of leaders of the BRICS group after the host made it clear that as a member state it would have to abide by the ICC order.
Putin received assurances ahead of his trip to Mongolia that he would not be arrested, Bloomberg News reported earlier, citing two sources familiar with the Kremlin’s preparations for his trip.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Mongolia “must execute the binding international arrest warrant and hand over Putin to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”
An ICC spokesperson said earlier that parties “have an obligation to cooperate” with judicial decisions under the Rome Statute of the ICC, “including with regard to arrest warrants.” In the event of non-cooperation, an ICC judge can inform the court’s supervisory and legislative body, which “may take any measure it deems appropriate.”
Putin’s visit comes just six months after the first Mongolian judge to serve at the ICC took up his post. Khurelsukh praised the development at the time.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar said earlier that Putin should not be given a platform to promote aggression against Ukraine.
Neither Russia nor the US are members of the ICC, which has 124 member states.
Russia wants to build a new gas pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, through Mongolia to China. Russia can supply gas to Mongolia as part of the venture, Putin said in an interview with the Mongolian newspaper Unuudur.
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