But as they debated when to hold talks on the controversial US plans, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il added his voice to criticisms surrounding Washington's stance, describing the missile plans as unjustified.

"US agitation about the missile threat from our country is totally unjustified. It is little more than a clever way of concealing the ambition of those who want to establish global domination," Kim said before he left for a visit to Russia.

North Korea is one of the so-called rogue states that Washington has cited in justifying its missile plans.

"We support the position of Russia," Kim added.

A trio of top US officials including US foreign policy advisor Condoleezza Rice met President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin Thursday as the two sides tackled the missile dispute.

Rice was accompanied by US Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in Washington's most senior delegation to visit Moscow since US President George W. Bush took office in January.

But strategic stability dominated the agenda as Rice met a host of top Russian defense officials, warning that Washington's patience had its bounds and it planned to move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty no matter what Russia had to say about it.

A top Moscow minister later announced that the two sides had agreed a busy negotiating timetable aimed at helping resolve the dispute by the time Bush and Putin met on the sidelines of the October 20-21 APEC summit in Shanghai.

The Kremlin also said that Putin had telephoned Jiang Zemin after the talks to tell the Chinese president -- another stern critic of the US plans -- that Moscow had not changed its position on the missile defence proposals.

Putin "underlined the importance of simultaneous dialogue on both attack and defence weapons with the United States," the Russian statement said.

But in the face of apparent intransigence from Moscow, Rice warned that the United States also meant to hold its ground.

"President Bush made it very clear that he believes there is a threat, a new threat, and we will need to move, to go beyond ABM so that we can have a serious testing and evaluation program that gets us a solution to the threat," she warned after meeting Putin.

Bush "has not set a specific deadline, but it should be obvious to all concerned that the president believes that this is something that will happen relatively soon," she said. "The testing program will proceed."

Her comments confirmed Monday's statement by Bush, who warned that "if we can't reach agreement, we're going to implement" the missile defense shield, which Russia opposes, saying it could spark a new arms race.

Bush and Putin have already agreed to link negotiations on missile defense to bilateral nuclear arms cuts, a proposal that Rice said was "heavily discussed" during her meetings with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Security Council secretary Vladimir Rushailo.

Putin himself did not address the issue.

Instead, offering to turn over a new leaf in Moscow's at-times chilly ties with Washington, Putin said the US team's visit should "add new meaning to our relations, without the problems that have lingered on from the past."

And he specifically addressed Russia's desire to be declared a free market economy by Washington, thus paving the way for increased trade between the two sides.

"It is important... that the United States no longer views Russia as its enemy," Putin added, in reference to a Bush statement during the two leaders' historic summit in Ljubljana last month.

Following 40-minute talks with Rice, defense minister Ivanov said Moscow was willing to listen to Washington's arguments, while noting that such talks would take some time.

Rice later reported that she had "very good" consultations with Ivanov and Rushailo.

Moscow is facing the prospect of the United States' unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty, which bans Russia and the United States from building national missile defense systems.

But while Moscow has threatened to stock up on nuclear warheads should Washington follow through on its own, Russia has recently adopted a more conciliatory tone, suggesting it is ready to strike a useful bargain.

"Without being antagonists, without being enemies, Russia and the United States are looking for ways to establish... a system of international security, including the key question of strategic stability," Russia's defense minister said.

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Moscow Talks July 26, 2001