SOFIA, Dec 7 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday roundly rejected scathing Russian criticism of the West's role in Ukraine's election crisis, saying the United States and its allies were interested only in freedom for the Ukrainian people.
In addition, he hit out at Moscow's suggestions that the West, through the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) election monitoring teams, were "interfering" in former Soviet states.
"Some countries have recently argued that the OSCEs field work constitutes interference in internal affairs, that the OSCE has 'double standards', and that the OSCE has concentrated its efforts in the former Soviet republics for political reasons," Powell said.
"I categorically disagree," he told an OSCE ministerial meeting here. "All OSCE participating states signed up to the proposition that fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law are of legitimate concern to us all."
Earlier, Powell had denied sharp allegations by Russian President Vladimir Putin who on Monday accused the West of playing "sphere of interest" politics in Ukraine and destabilizing the former Soviet Union by pushing its own interests in the name of democracy.
"The people of the Ukraine are playing democracy in the name of freedom," Powell told reporters after meeting with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy.
"Spheres of influence, I think, is a term that really isn't relevant to the circumstances that we are facing today," he said, maintaining that foreign policy strategies had changed radically since the end of the Cold War.
"We're not competing or fighting over these places," Powell said, referring to Ukraine, Georgia, the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus. "We are not asking them to choose between the East and West.
"It's a different world we're living in where people want freedom, they want democracy, they want to be able to select their own leaders, they want to be able to select their own partners and friends." he said.
"You can have friends in both the East and to the West," Powell added.
On Monday, Putin lashed out at the West supporting Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who he said was demanding power no matter what the voters decided.
While he stressed that Russia would work with any leader who ultimately emerged from elections in Ukraine or any other part of the former Soviet Union, Putin seized on concerns that the West is trying to expand its influence in the former Soviet Union through democratic revolutions.
"We in Russia cannot support this sort of development... even if someone wants to call that 'democracy'," Putin told Russian journalists accompanying him on a trip to Turkey.
He warned this would lead to new divisions with some countries "being dictated to by a kind but strict uncle telling them what conditions they will live under.
"And if they don't obey, they will be beaten with a rocket and missile club, as happened in Belgrade," Putin said, referring to the NATO-led war on the former Yugoslavia over Kosovo.
Putin had openly supported Ukraine's pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich against the pro-western Yushchenko to succeed outgoing President Leonid Kuchma in the November 21 contest.
He congratulated Yanukovich, the announced victor, twice after the vote despite observers' claims that the polls were riddled with fraud and massive street protests in Kiev that led to the election's invalidation by Ukraine's Supreme Court, EU mediation and the scheduling of a new run-off vote on December 26.
Powell said he was hopeful that the parliament would on Tuesday adopt a plan to move forward with a new run-off election as well as resolve other disputes that have emerged.
12/07/2004 09:03 GMT - AFP