CORFU, Greece, June 28, SPA -- NATO and Russia have agreed to resume military ties in their first high-level meeting sinceRussia's war with Georgia disrupted their relations 10months ago, The Associated Press reported. NATO's outgoing Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Schefferannounced Saturday that the so-called NATO-Russia Council,a panel set up in 2002 to improve ties between the formerCold War rivals, was operational again. «It was my ambition to leave to my successor an NRC thatis up and running,» said de Hoop Scheffer, whose term assecretary-general ends Aug. 1. «After the meeting which just ended, I have achieved thataim. Because there was clearly a sense in that meeting thatthe NRC, which had been in neutral ... is now back ingear,» he said. «We also agreed to restart the militaryto military contacts.» The resumption of talks means NATO and Russia cancooperate on range of security issues, includingAfghanistan and efforts to fight piracy, terrorism and thespread of nuclear weapons. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met hiscounterparts from NATO's 28 member nations on the westernGreek island of Corfu ahead of a broader informal meetingof ministers from the 56-nation Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe. De Hoop Scheffer described the talks as «open andconstructive, which means we did not try to paper over ourdifferences on Georgia, for example. But we agreed not toallow those agreements to bring the NRC to a halt.» He said the renewed military contacts would involvemeetings of the chiefs of staff of Russia and NATOcountries. The meeting in Corfu, which came as President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev prepare to hold a summit next week, reflected the trend toward improvedrelations with Russia. De Hoop Scheffer said Lavrov and the other ministersraised the issue of Georgia extensively, and he said therecontinued to be «fundamental differences on theterritorial integrity of Georgia.» «But despite the fact I do not expect the twain to meet,there are a lot of things in NRC we can discuss and we canagree upon,» De Hoop Scheffer said. Lavrov said that «overall I view this meeting as veryuseful.» «We had a very frank discussion, at the center stage ofwhich was the need on how to work together in the future,»Lavrov said. «We spoke extensively on confidence building measures,but it is important to put those words into practice.» Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and Greek counterpartCostas Karamanlis were the only heads of government toattend the conference. «We want to forget (the past) and resume totalcooperation on all the issues on which we have decided tocollaborate,» Berlusconi told journalists on his arrivalat the meeting.--SPA www.spa.gov.sa/678985