Responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin's assault on U.S. foreign policy, U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said "one Cold War is enough," and he vowed to visit Moscow on a mission to reduce tensions between the two countries.
In his first speech as Pentagon chief at a security conference in Germany on Sunday, Gates rebuked Putin's accusation from a day earlier in which the Russian president blasted the U.S. for its use of military might around the world.
"As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time. Almost," Gates said, using humour and some pointed jabs in his response.
As the audience chuckled, Gates then said he has accepted Putin's invitation to visit Russia.
"We all face many common problems and challenges that must be addressed in partnership with other countries, including Russia," said Gates. "One Cold War was quite enough."
Putin on Saturday blamed U.S. foreign policy for inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons to defend themselves from an "almost uncontained use of military force."
He said "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts" and added that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way."
MacKay reacts
On CTV's Question Period on Sunday, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said he certainly does not agree with Russia's view.
"The Americans are a country that we cooperate with, as far as NORAD. They're an ally in NATO," he said in an interview from New Glasgow, N.S.
"There's always been a natural rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union -- or Russian now. So Vladimir Putin has his opinions. Canada as a sovereign state will make our own views of the United States and other countries, independent of anything that the Russians might say."
Afghanistan
Gates then flew on Sunday to Pakistan to discuss concerns over a renewed spring offensive by Taliban fighters in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Pakistan, a U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, has faced charges that the Taliban militia stage attacks from Pakistan against Afghan government troops and NATO- and U.S.-led coalition troops.
Pakistan denies the charges that the Taliban are staging attacks from inside Pakistan and says it has deployed some 80,000 troops along its border with Afghanistan to track down militants.
Gates planned talks with the President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and other top officials on cooperation in counterterrorism and efforts by Pakistan to stop militants from moving across the border, a senior Pakistani government official told the Associated Press.
The news comes on the day Taliban fighters ambushed a group of Afghan police officers, killing three of them and seriously wounding three others. The attack happened in the volatile Panjwaii district in the southern Kandahar province.
Canadian soldiers are deployed in the region, but there are no reports that any were involved in the attack. American forces in eastern Afghanistan, meanwhile, launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who attack remote U.S. outposts, the commander of U.S. forces in the region told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Musharraf acknowledged recently that his outgunned Pakistani frontier guards have allowed insurgents to cross the border and said the army soon would fence parts of the border to stem the problem.
NATO cooperation
The bulk of Gate's speech was devoted to the future of the NATO alliance and the need to work together to defend against threats.
Gates made an urgent call for NATO allies to live up to their promises to supply military and economic aid for Afghanistan.
"It is vitally important that the success Afghanistan has achieved not be allowed to slip away through neglect or lack of political will or resolve," Gates said. Failure to muster a strong military effort combined with economic development and a counter narcotics plan "would be a mark of shame," he said.
Gates also said that prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other mistakes have damaged America's reputation. It will take work, he said, to prove that the U.S. still is a force for good in the world.
While he did not mention the war in Iraq, Gates told officials at the security conference that Washington must do a better job of explaining its policies and actions.
For the past century, he said, most people believed that "while we might from time to time do something stupid, that we were a force for good in the world."
Many continue to believe that, Gates said. But, he added, "I think we also have made some mistakes and have not presented our case as well as we might in many instances. I think we have to work on that."
With files from The Associated Press
