NATO, Russia resume security ties

By David Brunnstrom and Ingrid Melander

CORFU, Greece (Reuters) - NATO and Russia on Saturday resumed formal cooperation on broad security threats but failed to bridge major differences over Georgia in their first high-level talks since the war in the Caucasus region.

The deal emerged after NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the two sides recognised it was time to crank up joint efforts against Afghan insurgents and drug trafficking, Somali piracy, terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

The Russia-NATO thaw emerged a week before a summit between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, and a summit of G8 powers in Italy.

"We have restarted our relations at a political level, we also agreed to restart the military to military contacts which had been frozen since last August," de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference, referring to the Russia-Georgia conflict.

"The NATO-Russia Council is now back in gear. We agreed not to let disagreements bring the whole train to a halt. On Georgia, there are still fundamental differences ... (But) Russia needs NATO and NATO needs Russia," he said.

"Afghanistan is clearly, also from the Russian side, a dossier where more and closer cooperation is certainly within the range of the possible," he said, and this could include intensifying counter-narcotics operations.

Russia was decidedly more reserved about the foreign ministers' deal struck on the Greek island of Corfu after protracted recriminations over Moscow's military intervention to repel Georgia's attempt to wrest back rebel territory.

RUSSIA STANDS FIRM ON GEORGIA