Corfu, Greece - NATO foreign ministers began talks with their Russian counterpart on Saturday, the first high-level meeting since the Georgia war last year, in an effort to rebuild a new era of cooperation in areas such as counterterrorism and Afghanistan. At the start of the NATO-Russia Council meeting, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said attendees share common security interests, such as the stabilization of Afghanistan, arms control, counterterrorism, and efforts to control the spread of narcotics and piracy.
"NATO-Russian contacts have been frozen at the political level since last August. Now they will be unfrozen and we will be back on track politically and I hope militarily as well," said NATO spokesperson James Appathurai.
A US official said NATO also hoped for cooperation with Russia in counter-piracy operations off Somalia and to extend, to a NATO level, bilateral talks on transit of military supplies to Afghanistan through Russian territory."
Relations between the alliance and Russia were suspended after Russian forces invaded Georgia after that country's troops attacked its breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Saturday's meeting is expected to launch a new programme of cooperation after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov refused to attend a NATO-Russia Council meeting planned in mid-May following a row over NATO-led military exercises in Georgia and mutual accusations of spying.
"I think it means that we will be back to business both politically and militarily," said Appathurai, adding that "while Georgia is a big issue "it cannot hang like a cloud on each and every argument of NATO-Russia relations in the Council."
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that "Russia and Europe have not forgotten what happened. We have to try to overcome it ... I never believed that it is right to isolate Russia."
He said that it was important to understand that there are new security threats such as nuclear proliferation and terrorism that both Europea and Russia must face together, not separately.
The US official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the lack of trust was one of the fundamental stumbling blocks and that US President Barack Obama was willing to re-engage Russia on every level.
The meetings come a week before both a summit between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow and a summit of G8 powers in Rome.
Lavrov is meeting with the 28 foreign ministers of the NATO countries on the sidelines of the two-day OSCE meeting, set to begin late Saturday.
Gathering on the island of Corfu, many ministers will stay through Sunday for an informal European Union review of ties with Iran over its post-election crackdown on opposition protesters.
The OSCE meeting will also tackle ways to overcome Russian-Western differences regarding Georgia and look at a new European security plan proposed by Medvedev.
