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Berlin – Tensions between the major powers have pushed the world closer to a new Cold War, former Soviet leader Mikhail S Gorbachev said on Saturday.The 83-year-old accused the West, particularly the United States, of giving in to “triumphalism” after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the communist bloc a quarter century ago.
The result, he said, could partly be seen in the inability of global powers to prevent or resolve conflicts in Yugoslavia, the Middle East and most recently Ukraine. “The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are even saying that it’s already begun,” Gorbachev said at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, close to the city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate.
Gorbachev called for trust to be restored through dialogue with Moscow, and suggested the West should lift sanctions imposed against senior Russian officials over the country’s support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Failure to achieve security in Europe would make the continent irrelevant in world affairs, he said.
Gorbachev’s comments echoed those of Roland Dumas, France’s foreign minister at the time the Berlin Wall fell.
“Without freedom between nations, without respect of one nation to another, and without strong and brave disarmament policy, everything could start over again tomorrow,” Dumas said. “Even everything we used to know, and what we called the Cold War.”
Meanwhile, Gorbachev has said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has “exhausted” his potential as Russia’s leader and his inability to change the Kremlin’s political system might prompt more massive anti-government protests.
Putin – who became prime minister after serving as Russia’s president in 2000-2008 – is almost certain to become president again during the March election, despite recent opposition rallies that have been the largest protests Russia has seen since the Soviet collapse.
Gorbachev said of Putin: “He won’t carry that weight. By now he has exhausted himself. Looks like that.”
Gorbachev recently urged Putin to give up power and annul the results of December’s fraud-tainted parliamentary vote, which triggered the rallies. The thousands of protesters also have joined Kremlin critics in accusing Putin’s government of cracking down on dissent, limiting press freedoms and breeding widespread corruption in Russia. “If he doesn’t overcome himself, change the way things are – and I think it will be difficult for him to do that – then everything will end up on city squares,” Gorbachev said. – AP
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