The development came after President Boris Yeltsin and the Constitutional Court lifted a travel ban on Gorbachev on Tuesday in order to allow the former Soviet president to attend a state funeral in Germany.
A spokesman at Gorbachev's research institute, the Gorbachev Foundation, said Tuesday that Gorbachev had received permission for a planned trip to Italy, and that he would be leaving as scheduled on Wednesday night.
The Italian Foreign Ministry also said Tuesday that Gorbachev would be making a 10-day trip to Italy, where he was due to meet Pope John Paul II and the Italian president, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, Reuters reported.
Gorbachev was to have left Italy briefly to attend the funeral of former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who was at the forefront of East-West detente.
But the Russian Interior Ministry issued a statement saying that Gorbachev had been allowed to travel on the understanding that he would only go to Germany.
"The Russian Foreign Ministry considers that Gorbachev, as a citizen who respects the laws of the state, will refrain from other foreign trips", said the statement, Itar-Tass reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, Valery Zorkin, the chairman of Russia's highest court, announced that Gorbachev would be allowed to leave the country for Germany on "humanitarian" grounds to attend the Brandt funeral Saturday, but that court still wanted to hear his testimony.
Zorkin said that the request to allow Gorbachev to leave had come from Yeltsin, and that the court had agreed to hear Gorbachev's testimony either before or after the trip.
Although the German government did not make a formal complaint about the travel restrictions imposed on Gorbachev, Chancellor Helmut Kohl did warn that action might be taken if the Soviet Union's last president were refused permission to attend Brandt's funeral.
Gorbachev had already been forced to cancel one trip abroad, to South Korea, after a travel ban was imposed Oct. 2.
But the Russian government, which is already accused of being heavy-handed, appeared loathe to incur further embarrassment after several Western governments protested against Gorbachev's treatment.
The court has summoned Gorbachev, who led the party from 1985-91, twice to testify at a trial to determine the legality of the former Communist Party. Gorbachev has refused to appear in what he calls a political drama.
Gorbachev seemed on Tuesday to have reached a compromise with the court, agreeing to meet with Zorkin to discuss the case. But Gorbachev repeated his refusal to testify at the trial itself, and said that he would meet with Zorkin only upon his return from abroad.
With the exception of Gorbachev, the court has now heard from all of the former party leaders it summoned three weeks ago.
It now will study documents submitted by both sides, and then will decide if it needs the testimony of additional witnesses.
Before the court does that, however, it must decide precisely which documents -- and which period of the party's history -- it will accept as evidence in the case.
As they argued when the trial opened four months ago, lawyers defending the Communist Party said Tuesday that the court should concentrate only on party history and documents as far back as March 1990, when the party relinquished its governing role.
But Yeltsin's lawyers argued that the party's history, dating back to 1917, must be examined in order to determine whether or not the party itself was constitutional.
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Remind me later.