Gorbachyov Fears New Cold War

Mikhail Segeyevich Gorbachyov (1931-), last President of the USSR (1985-1991)

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Former (and last) Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachyov said in comments published this week that the USA risks starting a new Cold War by its proposal to go ahead with a missile shield in Eastern Europe. The US military hopes to establish a limited anti-missile shield comprising 10 interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in Czechia. However, Moscow dismissed US claims to be setting up the shield against emerging military powers such as Iran, saying that the system could be used against Russia. This war of words has continued ever since the US administration came up with the proposal to set up such a missile defence system in Eastern Europe. Despite continuing consultations between Moscow and Washington to address Russian concerns, there seems to be little progress achieved so far. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters recently that Russian concerns over US plans to site parts of an anti-missile shield in Europe haven’t been allayed despite US claims to the contrary. “Several people representing the United States, briefing their NATO partners, have given the impression that all of Russia’s problems have been resolved”, Lavrov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. However, he noted he clearly told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “this isn’t the case”.

At a meeting last month between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W Bush in the southern Russian resort of Sochi, Moscow “agreed that we would discuss the transparency measures that the Americans proposed”, Lavrov told Interfax. “These measures require agreement and we might have our own additions to these measures. Only in this case”, Lavrov emphasised, “if we reach agreement on these measures, might our concerns be softened”. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph this week, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachyov took issue with Washington’s assertion that the anti-missile shield is aimed exclusively at countering the threat from so-called “rogue states”. Instead, he said, the military build-up, plus the eastward expansion of NATO into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, was aimed at containing a resurgent Russia, where a new President, Dmitri Medvedev, has just been inaugurated. While Russia doesn’t threaten anyone, Gorbachyov pointed out, “we see the United States approving a military budget and the Defence Secretary pledging to strengthen conventional forces because of the possibility of a war with China or Russia. I sometimes have a feeling”, the former Soviet leader noted ruefully, “that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world”. Gorbachyov, who presided over the dismantling of the Eastern bloc military alliance in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991, told the Daily Telegraph that “the Americans promised that NATO wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War, but, now, half of Central and Eastern Europe are members. So, what happened to their promises?”

8 May 2008

Yuri Reshetnikov

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=26798&cid=87&p=08.05.2008

Voice of Russia World Service