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Unipolar world unacceptable, says Medvedev

MOSCOW: Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev rejected the U.S.-led unipolar world and warned the West to respect Russia's spheres of interests. Moscow would not go back on its recognition of Georgia's breakaway provinces and would give them military aid, he added.

On Sunday, Mr. Medvedev laid down what he described as guiding principles of his foreign policy, which signalled an appreciable hardening of Moscow's line on the West. The world must be multi-polar; unipolarity is unacceptable; domination is unacceptable, he said in an interview to Russian state-owned TV channels.

We can't accept the world order where all decisions are made by one nation, even if it is such a serious and authoritative nation as the U.S. Such a world would be unstable and prone to conflicts, he said.

Mr. Medvedev said Russia had privileged interests in neighbouring regions and beyond and assigned top priority to the task of defending its citizens and business interests. It should be clear to everybody that if some one makes aggressive encroachments, we will hit back, he added.

He said the decision to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia was irreversible and promised to sign treaties with both regions to provide them with economic, social, humanitarian and military assistance. Moscow has called for an international arms embargo on Georgia and said the U.S. had started rearming the Georgian Army.

It is necessary to impose an embargo on arms supplies to this regime till the time when another government in Georgia turns it into a normal state, said Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Moscow had earlier said it would never talk again to Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili after he sent the Army to retake South Ossetia.

Mr. Lavrov hinted at dire consequences if the West continued to support the Saakashvili regime. We'd like America to embark on the road of change, rather than stand in the way of changes, he said, adding: Otherwise, the U.S. and the world are in for hard times.

If the United States and its allies at the end of the day choose the Saakashvili regime… over their national interests, they will make a mistake of historic proportions, said Mr. Lavrov a lecture at Russia's premier diplomatic school in Moscow on Monday.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said it had evidence that there were military cargoes among humanitarian supplies U.S. warships brought to Georgia in the past few days. The U.S. has begun rearming Georgia, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko on Monday.

As the EU met on Monday to discuss ways to punish Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia would suspend some of its commitments to the West in agriculture and industry till the time when it is granted membership in the WTO. Moscow on Monday also banned 19 U.S. chicken producers from its market, citing sanitary violations and issued a warning to another 29 poultry farms.

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