Russia and the United States might make progress on missile defense issues this year, said Russian presidential aide Arkadi Dvorkovich on Tuesday, Xinhua reported.
He said the upcoming meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, in France will be a step forward.
"In any case, a number of meetings have been planned for this year, so one can expect some progress on this issue," Dvorkovich told a news conference.
He also noted that dialogue between Moscow and Washington on the missile defense has been continuing, but he admitted that the issues were complicated because of the "past burden" and lack of mutual trust.
"The most important thing is to build mutual trust between militaries of the two countries," he said.
Earlier in May, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia was disappointed at the U.S. refusal to give Moscow judicial guarantees that the European missile defense system would not target Russia.
Moscow has been long opposed to the deployment of NATO missile defense facilities near its borders, saying they would be a security threat to the country and upset the strategic balance of force in Europe.