The relationship got off to a chilly start with a major spy row in February last year that saw mass tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats reminiscent of the Cold War.

Washington and Moscow also locked horns over a series of thorny issues such as contested plans for a US anti-missile shield, the Russian military crackdown in Chechnya and Moscow's arms sales to Iran.

But the two leaders broke the ice during a walk at their first meeting in Slovenia in June. Bush showed his "trust" in Putin by inviting him to his beloved Texas ranch in the autumn.

For his part the Kremlin chief adopted a conciliatory tone on all points of friction between the two countries, affirming that "there is nothing that cannot be resolved" and predicting a "pragmatic relationship between Russia and the United States."

The two men agreed to accept their differences and avoid exploiting them.

The Russian army pursued its heavy-handed operation in Chechnya and the Kremlin kept up the pressure on opposition media, such as the NTV television channel and later TV-6, without Washington voicing too much of a protest.

US, Japan, South Korea To Meet On North Korea Policy Washington Jan 17 (AFP) - Senior officials from the United States, Japan and South Korea will meet in Seoul later this month for their latest consultations on policy towards communist North Korea, the State Department said Thursday. The partners, which agreed to harmonise policy towards Pyongyang in 1999, will convene a meeting of their Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) on January 25, said acting departmental spokeswoman Lynn Cassel in a statement. The United States will be represented at the talks by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, she said. South Korea will send Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yim Sung-joon and Japan will be represented by Hitoshi Tanaka, Director General of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Relations between North and South Korea peaked with a historic peninsular summit in 2000, but have since soured. A slow easing of tensions between the United States and Pyongyang foundered after President George W. Bush came to power and cast doubt on the previous Clinton administration's bid to halt North Korea's missile program. The Bush administration has since offered to hold talks at "any time and any place" with Pyongyang -- but the Stalinist North has yet to respond.

The United States announced its withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to allow it to build the missile shield, provoking only a mild response in Russia.

And it set up military bases in ex-Soviet Central Asia to help fight its anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan with Moscow's nod of approval.

"Russia clearly needs the West more than the West needs Russia, so the Kremlin will keep up the policy of rapprochement with the United States, no matter what," said independent military commentator Pavel Felgenhauer.

Over the US bases in Central Asia, Putin had to slap down his own defence minister Sergei Ivanov, who had spoken out against a US military presence in Moscow's traditional backyard.

On ABM, the Russian president criticized as a "mistake" the US decision to walk away from the treaty on December 13 but this was a significant retreat from his previous insistence that it was "the cornerstone of strategic stability."

A high-ranking member of the Russian general staff, General Yury Baluyevsky, announced on Sunday that Moscow had no plans to counter the US missile shield.

But Putin did gain dividends from his unconditional support for the US-led anti-terrorist campaign in the wake of the September 11 attacks, allowing him to present the Chechen campaign as a fight against Islamic terrorism.

The coming year should see a new deal slashing nuclear weapons levels, even though Moscow wants a formal treaty while the US prefers a less binding formula.

But the hardest task will be to establish a relationship of lasting trust, according to Dmitry Trenin, deputy director of the Moscow Carnegie Centre think-tank.

"Putin is on a very slippery slope, as Russia will have to abandon the last vestiges of its superpower status in favour of regional integration," he said.

Bush said in October that NATO was prepared to make "historic decisions" on its enlargement into eastern Europe at a summit in Prague in November 2002.

He said that the United States supported NATO membership "for all of Europe's new democracies, from the Baltic to the Black Sea," a prospect which has raised the hackles of the Russian military and political class.

All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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