UNITED NATIONS, April 21: Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev blasted the United States on Wednesday for its “hypocrisy” over nuclear arms and called for cuts in its nuclear arsenal. Addressing a news conference with Ted Turner, Mr Gorbachev said that the United States should not suggest that other countries have no need for nuclear weapons while it retains a large arsenal itself.

“I think Russia is ready to cooperate. Now the question is, is the United States ready to do this? I don’t think so,” Mr Gorbachev said.

“I think the United States is sick. It suffers from the sickness, the disease of being the victor and it needs to cure itself from this disease.”

“They say other people don’t need it, but what kind of law is this that they are advocating? It’s the law of the jungle,” the last Soviet president said.

Mr Gorbachev was at the United Nations to present the 2005 Allan Cranston Peace Award to CNN founder and UN benefactor Ted Turner.

Mr Turner shared Gorbachev’s view that the United States was ‘hypocritical’.

“It’s just hypocrisy in my opinion for us, with our 30,000 nuclear weapons, to tell other small countries — some small countries, it’s OK for others; I don’t think we’ve ever said anything about Israel’s nuclear weapons — but I don’t see how we can say anything about anybody when we’ve got so many ourselves,” Mr Turner said.

Speaking about the international community’s need to grapple with two of the world’s biggest nuclear powers, Mr Gorbachev said, “We don’t need to kiss each other, we don’t need to flirt with each other, we have to work together and be partners with the United States and Russia.”

Mr Turner said, “I would certainly hope that the new pope would be against war.”