The first meeting between Rasmussen, who took over the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's top job last week, and Russia's normally fiery NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin was conducted in "a very friendly atmosphere," spokeswoman Carmen Romero said.

"The main priority is how we can reinvigorate the NATO-Russia Council," the formal bilateral consultation mechanism, she told reporters.

"They talked about resuming high level contacts and both agreed that it is necessary to take the NATO-Russia Council forward, to make it a more political forum and to discuss the real security and strategic issues and that both sides are going to work on that," Romero said after the meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Rasmussen said that "he intends to personally engage in taking the relationship forward, that the relations between NATO and Russia are one of his priorities of his mandate," she added.

The NATO chief wants ties resuming not only in the field of military cooperation, "but in as many areas as possible, including Afghanistan, piracy, counter-narcotics, arms control, science, counter-terrorism," she said.

Ties between Moscow and the alliance hit a post-Cold War low last August when Russia and NATO hopeful Georgia briefly went to war, although the two sides agreed in June to resume political and military cooperation.

Georgia is seeking to join the alliance, but Moscow is deeply suspicious of NATO's expansion eastward.

When he took the NATO helm last week the former Danish prime minister made Afghanistan and Russia relations his top priorities for his four-year mandate.

Moscow will be informed of consultations within NATO on defining its "new strategic concept" in the post-Cold War world, said Romero.

NATO leaders should complete and approve that task next year.

Rogozin said in the meeting that the issue of Georgia must be discussed, she added.

After last year's war Moscow declared the rebel Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be independent states.

The new NATO chief replied that "we have many differences but they shouldn't overshadow the fact that we should work together security threats," she said.

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