(dpa) - Outgoing President Vladimir Putin's successor Dmitri Medvedev was to meet for the first time with top US officials on Monday for talks over disputed US plans for missile defence bases in Europe, news agency Interfax reported.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Moscow for two-day meetings with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister Anatoli Serdyukov in another round of discussions from October on strategic cooperation and security issues, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.
A key era arms control treaty that is expiring, containment of Iran's nuclear programme and Kosovo's recent declaration of independence will also be on the agenda, Peskov said.
But Rice and Gates might well use the opportunity to suss out president-elect Medvedev, who will open talks at the Kremlin before handing over to Putin.
Medvedev, who won by a landslide in March 2 elections, has promised to follow Putin's course and appoint him prime minister, stumping analysis of possible policy differences and his independence.
Ties between Washington and Moscow have come to a head over US plans to deploy a missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic in increasing tensions over conflicting international security visions reminiscent of clashes over the US Cold War policy of containment.
The United States wants to base the system in Eastern Europe by 2013 to protect against Iran's growing ballistic missile capability, while Russia believes the system would threaten its nuclear deterrent and has warned it could target the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.
US President George W Bush and Putin, who settled on the meetings in a telephone call last week, are expected to face off over the countries differing perceptions of NATO at a summit for the organizations on April 2 in Bucharest.