Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signed an agreement with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Thursday to facilitate joint military maneuvers and troop training and to ease the transport of forces through each other's territories.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called the signing "a concrete milestone in practical NATO-Russia co-operation."

The "status of forces agreement" offers legal protection to NATO troops on Russian territory and similar rights to Russian forces visiting NATO nations. Allied diplomats said it could ease NATO supplies lines to its peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

"It provides us with a much needed legal framework that enhances substantially our ability to act together in the face of common threats," de Hoop Scheffer said.

Lavrov joined his NATO counterparts as they held their first meeting on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Lithuania is one of the three Baltic states that joined NATO a year ago.

Also on his agenda of the NATO-Russia meeting were differences over the role of Russian troops in Moldova and Georgia.

Relations may be strained

In another development, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other NATO foreign ministers planned to offer Ukraine fast-track membership talks at their meeting yesterday.

But NATO officials said the ministers would stop short of setting a target entry date at their talks in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius for fear of annoying Russia.

Russia opposed their membership and is wary of NATO efforts to build closer relations with Ukraine.

NATO has made it no secret that the victory of pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine's rerun presidential elections last December after an allegedly rigged first poll had boosted the membership chances of Kiev, which also wants to join the European Union.

"The government in Ukraine has made its aspirations clear and is in a better position to fulfill its aspirations for reform," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told a news briefing, contrasting Yushchenko with his pro-Moscow predecessor.

Appathurai said 26-nation NATO would offer Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk a "form of enhanced dialogue, together with a package of practical and political elements."

There have been calls for Ukraine to be given NATO membership within five years. But alliance diplomats fear a rush towards entry could raise tensions with Russia and alienate many Ukrainians in the former Soviet republic's pro-Moscow east.

Rice's description of NATO as the "premier alliance" for strategic dialogue between Europe and the United States comes as the two sides seek to mend an alliance torn by the rift over the Iraq War and explore other uses for it.

(China Daily April 22, 2005)