Mikhail Gorbachev calls for world unity on Standard visit

Mikhail Gorbachev today used a visit to the Evening Standard to call for a new era of international co-operation - and urged America to stop acting as the world's policeman.

Speaking to the newspaper, the former leader of the Soviet Union revealed he is working on moves to reduce the world's stockpiles of weapons, gave his backing to Gordon Brown's attempts to solve the economic crisis and declared that David Cameron is not yet ready to take power.

And, looking ahead to a visit to Washington, the 78-year-old gave strong backing to Barack Obama but said Americans must stop trying to run the world.

"One day it will have to stop giving orders and stop trying to tell the whole world how it should act," said President Gorbachev.

"And its military must try to act within this new order, so that when all the countries of the United Nations propose solutions together, their decisions will be brought to life."

Mr Gorbachev, one of the most important figures of the past century, visited the Evening Standard to show his support for the newspaper's staff and new owner, Alexander Lebedev.

He toured the Standard's Kensington offices and made a speech before giving an impromptu press conference.

As Soviet president, he changed the course of history with the twin reform programmes of "glasnost" and "perestroika" - openness and reconstruction - that ushered in democracy and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2000, he is now working on plans to cut the number of nuclear missiles and conventional arms.

"Even if we got rid of every nuclear weapon in the world, 75 per cent of the world's weapons left over would be in the USA," he said. "Therefore, we have to control the militarisation of the world, and not just nuclear weapons."

He is working with Ronald Reagan's former Secretary of State, George Schultz, with whom he negotiated arms control treaties in the Eighties, to hold a major international conference on the issue in Rome this year.

Despite his criticism of past US foreign policy, Mr Gorbachev was full of praise for President Obama and looking forward to meeting him in Washington.

He said: "America needs its own perestroika right now and the problems he is dealing with are not easy ones."

Mr Gorbachev also backed Mr Brown's idea of international reform and greater co-operation. He added: "I think he has made several really wise decisions that have been taken up by his partners in other countries."

But he felt Tory leader Mr Cameron was too wedded to the policies of the Eighties. "To me, the Conservative Party is not ready to give up the policies of the Reaganomics era. Maybe they would like to take the initiative but they are not ready for that yet."

Mr Gorbachev's speech was translated from Russian by Mr Lebedev, who joked: "I have to warn the editor-in-chief that I am a highly expensive interpreter."

The Evening Standard's new editor, Geordie Greig, said he was delighted by the support of such a famed promoter of democracy.

"Mikhail Gorbachev was a man who sacrificed the power of the world's largest empire to give democratic freedom to his people and he is now interested in supporting news-papers and free speech," he said.

Evening Standard // 12.03.2009