Putin: outside interference in South China Sea dispute will do only to harm

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that interference of a non-regional power in the dispute over the South China Sea could only hamper the solution of this problem. "This is counter-productive," Putin told a news conference after a G20 summit in China, adding that Russia supported Beijing's stance on the Hague court ruling. An arbitration court in the Hague ruled in July that China had no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and had infringed on the rights of the Philippines, which brought the case under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.