July 28 (LPAC) – Mikhail Gorbachov, the former Soviet leader, backed Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer for joint missile defense development with the United States, at a packed Moscow press conference, yesterday. Reports on Gorbachov's remarks appeared in numerous European and other international news dailies, today.

Gorbachov said the Bush Administration's reasons for a missile defense of its own, were questionable, because both Iran and North Korea were engaging already with the West on their nuclear programs. Gorbachov also said that Putin's decree to suspend the conventional forces reduction treaty (CFE) on July 14, was not meant to signal the start of a new arms race and Cold War, but rather as an "encouragement for a dialogue on the amended document which Russia has ratified, but the USA and other NATO members have not."

Gorbachov did, however, voice skepticism, as to whether dialogue was possible at all with the Bush-Cheney Administration, saying that "under the current U.S. President, I don't think we can fundamentally change the situation as it is developing now. It's dangerous. The world is experiencing a period of growing global disarray." The obsession of the current US Administration with "empire-building" has led the Americans to "commit a string of major strategic mistakes." He also indicated that Russian leaders have gained a clear enemy image about the British, when he said that in the Litvinenko affair, the British are, as they have done many times before, provoking trouble and conflict with Russia, trying then to pull the USA and other western powers behind their cause. The Litvinenko case, actually a case for the law, has been "politicized" by London, and "someone needs it to be so, and to spoil relations with Russia," Gorbachov charged.