Russia rejects US criticism

Putin, citing the need for radical reform to beat terrorism, has said he will nominate regional governors himself in the future and proposed changes to the electoral system that will effectively stop the rise of a strong parliamentary opposition.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an interview with Reuters, echoed liberal criticism in Russia by saying the planned changes were "pulling back on some of the democratic reforms." He pledged to raise his concerns with the Russian leadership.

But, speaking in Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a meeting of ex-Soviet states, Putin's foreign minister said Washington had no right to impose its own model of democracy on others.

"First of all, the processes that are under way in Russia are our internal affair," Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday in reference to Powell's comments.

"And it is at least strange that, while talking about a certain 'pulling back', as he (Powell) put it, on some of the democratic reforms in the Russian Federation, he tried to assert yet one more time the thought that democracy can only be copied from someone's model," Lavrov said.

"We, for our part, do not comment on the US system of presidential elections, for instance."

Powell, in the interview, expr-essed sympathy for the Kremlin drive against terrorism after this month's Beslan school attack by Chechen rebels that led to a bloodbath in which more than 320 people, half of them children, were killed.