"The term 'needn't take into account' is pretty mild. You know, I wouldn't want to talk about America. I know the country, and half of it is against war. It's simply a case of not letting their president down in such a situation, and the citizens feel obliged to lend him their support. I would say it's more a case of the administration acting in this way.

By behaving like this with their allies and partners the administration is snubbing an already complicated world, where co-operation and dialogue are essential. What's more, and above all, they are acting in defiance of international law, and contradicting it at the same time. This has shaken the whole of Europe.

It reminds me of the situation in Yugoslavia during the Clinton years. China's opinion was ignored, as was Russia's. They didn't care about getting a green light from the UN, and when things started getting more complicated, tragic, and bloody, what do you know? Suddenly the UN seemed necessary after all; partners like Russia became valuable again. If you remember, this is how things ended up.

Now more recently, take the events of the September 11th. From this moment on it was only logical for a coalition to form. In fact, as soon as the political will had been forged, all the mechanisms began rolling. It's international mechanisms that move everything".

"This conflict has got worse with globalisation. If you remember, when the cold war confrontation and the arms race ended, we wanted to free up financial resources. It was necessary to give aid to these countries, to fight against poverty. We are, after all, talking about three billion people, or half of the world. It's a serious problem, a bomb that could explode, and if it does everyone will be damaged.

Globalisation has developed in such a way as to impoverish the poor even more, and enrich the wealthy. The inability to control this process is a very serious collective danger, and so, in my opinion, this "southern" problem exists in every country. There are more poor people in the USA today than ever before, more poor people in Great Britain, and elsewhere. All this in less than 10 years; it's a global problem".

"Globalisation is here. It's a reality, and a reflection of our technological and computerisation progress. The real question is how do we manage this, how do we understand, and correct it; what are the objectives, and what policies do we use? Current world politics are terribly behind these events, and are based on present interests, like in elections for example. So the priorities are built around the media's cameras more than a real vision for the future.

"I think we would have to do everything I did. I have no regrets. It was in the spirit of the age, and the choices were logical. It's more the timetable that would be different ; this was the real problem then. Party reforms, and the treaty of union with the soviet republics fell behind schedule, so at the same time the forces who rejected Perestroika had time to gather strength. They didn't want to go down that road for a very simple reason ; they had their own privileges and interests to defend".