MOSCOW, June 26: Russia warned Nato on Tuesday against unilateral policies that could destabilise security on the European continent, but agreed to keep talking on deep divisions between the former Cold War foes.

Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held talks with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on bitter disputes ranging from US plans for missile defence to Western backing for independence in Kosovo.

Russia and Nato need to ensure “each other's security and not take steps aimed at strengthening someone's security at the expense of someone else,” Lavrov said at a Russia-Nato Council meeting in Moscow.

“We value our Nato partners' readiness to discuss these questions openly with us,” Lavrov said. These issues “concern key aspects of European, international security, strategic stability,” he added.

Following the council meeting, De Hoop Scheffer said Russia and Nato should make more efforts to build closer links, adding: “We should continue the discussion on subject on which we do not see eye to eye.” De Hoop Scheffer told Putin at the start of their meeting in the Kremlin later on Tuesday that there was “no alternative” to strong relations between Russia and Nato, Russian news agencies reported.

“We have gone from a period of confrontation to cooperation... It's complicated work, it cannot happen without any problems,” Putin told the Nato chief.

Moscow and Nato disagree sharply on United States plans to deploy a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Washington says the system would guard against potential Iranian or North Korean attacks on Europe, while Moscow insists that Russia is the real target.

They are also at odds over Kosovo, with Nato backing a draft UN plan to give the Serbian province near full independence and Moscow threatening to veto the plan in the UN Security Council.

Russia is also furious at Nato's expansion into former Soviet territory, with Georgia and Ukraine being the latest former Soviet republics to seek membership.

Another looming disagreement is over the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, a Cold War-era agreement setting limits on deployment of heavy weapons and troops across countries in Nato and what was then the Warsaw Pact.

Putin has threatened to walk out of the CFE.

De Hoop Scheffer was in Moscow on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Russia-Nato Council and the 10th anniversary of the Nato-Russia Founding Act, which sought to build cooperation at a time when the military alliance was looking to expand into eastern Europe.

The government-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily said de Hoop Scheffer would be looking to get a feel for Russia's position on the disputed security issues ahead of Putin's visit for talks with Bush next week in the US state of Maine.

“The truth of the matter is that dialogue has recently come to resemble two monologues.”—AFP