BRUSSELS - NATO and Russia hold their highest-level talks this weekend since relations broke down over last year's war in Georgia, aiming to focus on cooperation and set aside major differences.

The two-hour talks come on the sidelines of an informal meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Osce), where Lavrov this week again floated Moscow's plans for a sweeping new European security pact.

Nato is keen that the meeting 'have a forward looking character and should focus on specific issues of possible cooperation, including military to military cooperation,' according to spokeswoman Carmen Romero.

Moscow pulled out of the last planned meeting of this kind in May after Nato vowed to go ahead with war games in Georgia, whose ambition to join the Western military alliance has deeply angered Russia.

Nato and Russia have been at loggerheads over missile defence plans, the recognition of the independence of Kosovo - where Nato has a peacekeeping force - and a number of arms treaties.

But Russia's five day war with Georgia last August and its subsequent recognition of the independence of the breakaway Georgia regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia ratcheted up tensions.

With ties still tense, the alliance sees the security pact - floated by President Dmitry Medvedev a year ago - as a strategy to undermine Nato.

The new, legally binding security pact would replace what Russia insists are outdated arms control treaties from the Cold War and help avoid crises like the war in Georgia.

Top EU and Nato officials insist their is no need for new structures. -- AFP