NATO resumes diplomatic contacts with Russia

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow's ambassador to the alliance, met over lunch Friday in the first high-level meeting after a four-month hiatus caused by the war.

The informal meeting aimed to explore how formal contacts could be restarted.

"They agreed to look at ways to restart the engagement," said NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero.

She said the two sides would look to hold an informal meeting of the NATO-Russia Council--a consultative panel set up in 2002 to improve relations between the former Cold War foes--at ambassadorial level next month.

Rogozin said his lunch with de Hoop Scheffer in an Italian restaurant near NATO headquarters was a step toward "normalization" of relations.

"The most difficult thing is to make the first step," he told reporters. "We are at the beginning of the difficult route to restore trust."

In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Russian side wanted to discuss the root causes of the brief war in which Russian forces occupied large swaths of Georgia after Georgian troops shelled and invaded the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The United States and some East European nations have blamed Moscow for causing the bloodshed, but Moscow says its military actions were defensive and in response to Georgia's aggression.

"Now, when our NATO colleagues talk about restoring relations, we will insist that the restoration of ties starts with the discussion of the causes of the Caucasus crisis which our NATO partners dodged in August," Lavrov said.