A school teacher welcomes a pupil outside school No. 6 in Beslan two weeks after the massacre at school No. 1 (AFP)

Astana (Kazakhstan), Sept. 15 (Reuters): Russia curtly told the US to stay out of its business today after American criticism, echoed by the EU, of President Vladimir Putin?s plans for radical change that will boost Kremlin power.

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

US secretary of state Colin Powell backed liberal criticism in Russia by saying the changes were ?pulling back on some of the democratic reforms?. He pledged to raise his concerns with the Russian leadership.

But Russia?s foreign minister, speaking in Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a meeting of ex-Soviet states that tomorrow will discuss a joint approach to fighting terrorism, said Washington had no right to impose its model of democracy on others. ?First of all, the processes that are under way in Russia are our internal affair,? Sergei Lavrov said.

?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 expressed sympathy for the Kremlin drive against terrorism after the Beslan school tragedy.