NATO seeks to improve Russia ties

Relations between NATO and Russia have been difficult since the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999

MOSCOW, Russia -- NATO Secretary General George Robertson is set to arrive in Moscow for talks aimed at improving relations between NATO and Russia.

Concerns over U.S. plans for a National Missile Defence system (NMD) and NATO expansion eastwards are expected to top the agenda during three days of talks with President Vladimir Putin and other officials which begin on Monday.

Relations between Moscow and NATO were battered during NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia two years ago.

But Russia is also becoming increasingly concerned about NATO's expansion -- it has already embraced former Warsaw Pact states Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and is expected to incorporate ex-Soviet countries including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Georgia.

Tensions have spread across Europe over the NMD system.

The U.S. says it is aimed at so-called rogue states such as China, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, but Russia believes the system is aimed at itself and China.

Putin has suggested an alternative which would keep the balance of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaties in place.

Robertson ready to listen

Robertson told Russian journalists ahead of his visit that he wanted to discuss Moscow's concerns and find out more about Putin's proposal.

A senior Russian general said on Friday that Moscow's theatre defence plan for Europe, involving a mobile anti-missile force, was ready and might be presented to Robertson.

It would provide regional defence systems located near suspect countries' borders allowing any missile to be shot down in their "boost phase" soon after launch.

France and Germany have sought more details of the plan.

Anxieties rose last week when Russia refuted German claims that it was moving more towards agreement with the U.S., backing up the denial with military exercises.

Russia sent warplanes on exercises near its borders with Japan and Norway, and test fired three strategic missiles almost simultaneously from a launch-pad, a submarine and a bomber.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had earlier praised Moscow's "constructive" approach to arms control during talks last week, predicting that Moscow would eventually agree to talks on NMD.

But negotiations planned between Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and new U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Egypt this week were soured when the U.S. made increasingly strident comments in Washington.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Moscow was "part of the problem" of spreading missile technology rather than trying to solve it.

Robertson, who met Putin in the Kremlin last year, is expected to re-open NATO's Moscow mission during his visit.

The mission was shut in March 1999, a day after U.S.-led NATO warplanes began 11 weeks of bombing Yugoslavia in response to Belgrade's crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.

Robertson said he would tell Russians they had nothing to fear from NATO expansion.

"I would not want to make light of the concerns expressed by Russia on this topic, but I do wonder sometimes whether a large part of the problem is a question of perception, rather than fact," he told Interfax news agency.

He added, he would fulfil in Moscow one of diplomacy's most important tasks -- "to bring perception into line with reality."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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