В.Путин.Выступление на Мюнхенской конференции.Part 8

Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy.Part 8 February 10, 2007 Munich Выступление и дискуссия на Мюнхенской конференции по вопросам политики безопасности.Part 8 10 февраля 2007 года Мюнхен QUESTION: I understand your sincerity and I hope that you will accept our sincerity. First of all, about arms control. Who needs a new arms race? I want to point out that the USA has not developed a new strategic weapon in more than two decades and that you recently tested the Topol-M missile, and that it is already deployed in silos and on mobile installations. You criticised the USA for unilateral actions and said twice that military actions can only be legitimate if they receive UN approval. The USA is carrying out military actions in Iraq and in Afghanistan according to UN decisions and today in Kosovo the majority of troops are supporting peace-making operations in this country. My question is the following: are you saying that independently of how Russia perceives a threat to its international interests, it will not undertake military operations without UN approval? QUESTION: You talked about the danger of a unipolar world in which one sovereign makes a decision without consulting anyone else. In many peoples opinion, in Russia we are seeing an increasingly unipolar government where competing centres of influence are forced to tow the party line, whether it be in the State Duma, the regional leadership, the media, business communities or non-governmental organisations. Would a unipolar government be such a reliable partner when the issue of energy security is at stake? PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: First of all I would like to thank you for your questions. Very interesting. It is a shame that we have little time left because I would be pleased to have a separate discussion with all of you. I very much enjoy this, I like it. I will begin with the last question about the unipolar nature of the Russian government. Today the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the United Russia Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and other political forces as well sit in the Russian parliament. And their basic positions differ significantly. If you arent aware of this then just have a talk with the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and then with the leader of our liberal democrats, Mr Zhirinovsky. You will see the difference at once. If you cannot see it now, then have a talk with them. There is no problem here, simply go to Moscow and talk to them. About our future plans. We would like to have a mature political system, a multi-party system with responsible politicians who can anticipate the countrys development and not only work responsibly before elections and immediately after, but in a long-term future as well. That is what we aspire to. And this system will certainly be a multi-party one. All our actions within Russia, including changing the State Duma election regime, the election regime in t