Corfu, Greece - Nearly a year after the war in Georgia soured their relations, NATO and Russia agreed to kick off a new era of cooperation Saturday on security issues ranging from the stabilization of Afghanistan to counter-terrorism. Gathering on the Greek island of Corfu, foreign ministers from the 28 NATO states and Russia agreed to resume contacts at the political level and to restart military-to-military contacts which had been frozen since last August as a result of the Russia-Georgia war.
"The NATO-Russia Council is now back on track," said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
De Hoop Scheffer, who is ending his term as head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said he wanted to leave his successor with a NATO-Russia Council that was "up and running."
"We have agreed not to allow disagreements to bring the NATO- Russian Council train to a halt - on the issue of Georgia there are still fundamental differences ... but Russia needs NATO and NATO needs Russia."
Both parties agreed to collaborate on security issues ranging from terrorism and nuclear proliferation to countering piracy off the coast of Somalia.
"Afghanistan is clearly also from the Russian side a dossier where more and closer cooperation is certainly within the range of the possible - but the specifics have not been worked out yet," said de Hoop Scheffer.
Showing some reservations about the deal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the agreement "a positive development."
He said that Russia never severed its relations with Georgia and that Moscow's recognition of the breakaway Georgian states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was the "new reality" that the West must get used to.
Relations between the alliance and Russia were suspended for almost a year after Russian forces invaded Georgia after the latter country's troops attacked South Ossetia.
Moscow has since blocked an extension of an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) peace monitoring mission in Georgia, which expires on Tuesday.
Observers fear the OSCE military observers' departure might lead to new fighting in Georgia.
Efforts to formally resume the NATO-Russia Council have previously foundered, with Moscow pulling out of a planned meeting in May following a row over NATO-led military exercises in Georgia and mutual accusations of spying.
Earlier, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that it was important to understand that "there are new security threats such as nuclear proliferation and terrorism that both Europe and Russia must face together, not separately."
US Deputy Sec
