Europe still fears Russia, Gorbachev tells Nobel Peace laureates

Nov 10, 2009, 11:12 GMT

   Berlin - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Tuesday called for better relations between Russia and the European Union, at a summit of Nobel Peace laureates held in Berlin.

'There is still some fear of Russia in the European Union,' Gorbachev said, warning that security in Europe depended in part on cooperation with Russia.

'The European Union has not yet decided what kind of Russia it wants to see,' the former Soviet leader added.

Gorbachev was addressing participants at the 10th summit of Nobel Peace laureates, held in the wake of Berlin's celebrations marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

Delegates included former South African president FW de Klerk, former Polish president Lech Walesa and Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, the founder of the Grameen Bank which grants credit to the poor.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso responded to Gorbachev, 'We want a strong, stable and prosperous Russia, based on a respect for law and human rights.'

The conference under the motto, 'Breaking down new walls,' was opened by Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who said the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago was symbolic of the change that people are capable of bringing about.

The summit's co-chair, Italian politician Walter Veltroni, said events of 1989 did not bring the international peace hoped for, as the war in the Balkans proved.

'We live in a new period of insecurity,' Veltroni said, adding that new divisions and hatreds had put up walls between people, culture and religions.

During the two-day summit, the Nobel laureates were to discuss poverty, environmental challenges and nuclear disarmament, as well as taking stock of the world 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Bo Hla-Tint, the foreign minister of Burma's government-in-exile, called for help to free detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was 'still trying to break the invisible wall of mistrust and fears,' between the country's people and its military leadership.