Gorbachev: 'US using Cold War tactics'

Bridget Kendall put readers' questions to the Soviet leader

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of reverting to the methods of the Cold War by refusing to fight the war on terror through the United Nations.

It smacks of the Cold War and its method of solving problems

Mikhail Gorbachev

Answering a question about US intentions towards Iraq, during a live BBC News Online webcast, he said it was a mistake to think that all problems could be solved by force.

He said military action against the Taleban was justified, but expressed alarm about the possible extension of military action to countries on President Bush's "axis of evil" - North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

"Even US allies ask questions: 'Why is all this necessary?'" he said.

"But the Americans, in their statements, say: 'We don't need anyone, neither the Security Council nor other states. If they want to support us, let them, if they don't we'll do it ourselves.'"

New world

He added: "I tell you, when the United Nations, doesn't count for anything, when the Security Council doesn't count for anything... that is a return to the Cold War, it smacks of the Cold War and its methods of solving problems.

Surely the 20th Century taught us that force, military force, does not resolve problems

Mikhail Gorbachev

The veteran Soviet leader, who was elected General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party 17 years ago this month, also accused the United States of holding up an agreement between Russia and Nato on closer relations.

He praised UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for proposing the idea of a committee, on which Russia and Nato would take joint decisions on a range of issues.

"Suddenly, when the process was going well, and Europeans understood and started to co-operate, in America they say: 'Why are we hurrying? Let's consider this in the autumn.'

"They don't want it. They don't want it."

Pointing out that President Vladimir Putin had taken a major political risk by giving the US such vocal support after 11 September, he said that everyone needed to realise it was time for new approaches.

"We all live in another world, yet everyone thinks - especially the one remaining superpower in its splendid isolation - that nothing has changed.

"Pardon me, but the 21st Century is another world."

Raisa

The webcast also ranged widely over other subjects, from the Chernobyl disaster, and the collapse of the Soviet Union to his taste in literature.

Mr Gorbachev told a British schoolboy, addressing him as "Dear Brian", that his 1991 resignation was not voluntary, and he defended President Putin against accusations that he was muzzling the media.

He laughed at a suggestion that he was responsible for the chaos in Afghanistan, for having withdrawn Soviet forces without leaving behind a stable political system.

He also spoke movingly of the pain of losing his wife, Raisa, in September 1999.

He said she had been a friend as well as a partner, and that it was difficult to live without her.