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U.S. fuelling arms race: Putin

Vladimir Radyuhin

Russian President condemns indiscriminate use of force by America

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has ripped to pieces the concept of a unipolar world and blasted the United States for indiscriminate use of force, which provoked other countries to seek nuclear weapons.

Addressing a security forum in Munich, Germany, the Russian leader said, "The unipolar model of the world is not only unacceptable, but also unrealisable because in today's world, nobody has enough political or economic resources to enforce it".

Mr. Putin pointed out that the combined Gross Domestic Products of India and China based on purchasing power parity is already bigger than that of the U.S., while the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries have a larger GDP than the European Union. "There is no doubt that in the foreseeable future, the economic potential of these new centres of power will inevitably get converted into political clout and will strengthen multipolarity."

Attempts to impose the unipolar model by force have only generated more conflicts and more deaths.

String of conflicts

"We are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations, which plunges the world into a string of conflicts," Mr. Putin told a gathering of 250 top officials and political leaders from around the world, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders and is imposing its legal system on other states," Mr. Putin said. "This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody feels protected by international law. This policy fuels the arms race... encourages countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

"They keep teaching Russia democracy, but don't want to learn it themselves. Why do they resort to bombings and shellings all the time? Could it be because of a lack of political culture, respect for democracy and law?"

Recalling NATO promises to the former Soviet Union not to deploy military forces in Eastern Europe, Mr. Putin asked: "Where are your promises? Why is it necessary to move the NATO military infrastructure to Russian borders? What has that to do with combatting global threats?

"The unipolar world is destructive, not only for those who live in it, but also for its master, because it destroys him from within as it has nothing to do with democracy".

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