NEW DELHI, Dec 4: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday launched a blistering attack on the United States, accusing it of running a "dictatorship" over global affairs and able only to worsen humanity's problems.

He warned in a speech delivered in New Delhi against attempts to rebuild the modern system of international relations along the lines of a unipolar world.

The White House was quick to react to Mr Putin's allusion to Washington. A spokesman said President George Bush "believes the world must work together in a spirit of cooperation, not creating poles, to solve the common challenges we face".

"That is why the President has reached out to friends and allies, including President Putin, to win the war on terrorism, stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and advance freedom in places like Afghanistan and Iraq," spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The Russian president did not cite the United States by name. Rising single power dominance would also increase the "global threats of international terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking," the Russian leader said.

"The greater is the danger of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their coming into hands of terrorists, the more regional conflicts will happen," he said.

"Dictatorship, the more so dictatorship in international affairs, has never solved and could not have solved such problems in the history of mankind," Putin said.

"Only a balanced democratic system of international law," could help ease those problems, he said. He did not cite the United States by name.

"Even when dictatorship is beautifully gift-wrapped in pseudo-democratic phraseology it has never been capable of resolving such systemic problems. On the contrary, it can only make them worse," Putin said.

He also accused the West of practising double standards on terrorism and questioned whether fair elections could be held in Iraq in view of the continuing bloodshed and the fragility of the new government.- AFP