Ex-Soviet leader Gorbachev says US ''non-democratic''

     Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said that the United States had become "non-democratic" and stressed that Washington should rely more on international institutions.
     "The United States has to rely more on international institutions and public opinion and not only on its allies," state-run HINA news agency quoted Gorbachev as saying on a visit to Croatia.
     "It means that the US has become a non-democratic country. We wish that the United States would use partnership as the best solution" for global issues, he said.
    Gorbachev spoke at a conference on the reforms he had launched in the 1980s and which eventually led to the fall of the Iron Curtain separating eastern and western Europe.
     The one-day meeting, held in the Croatian coastal town of Primosten, was focusing on 20 years of "perestroika" -- a program of democratic and economic reforms that Gorbachev started in the former Soviet Union.
     It was attended by Croatian President Stipe Mesic, former French and Hungarian foreign ministers Roland Dumas and Janos Martonyi as well as ex-Romanian President Emil Constantinescu.
     Former US president George Bush who was also invited addressed the participants through a video broadcast message.
     Gorbachev's reforms known as perestroika first liberalized and eventually helped the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
     Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union during the 1985-1991 period, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Agence France Presse, 30.09.2006