"These groups will work under my responsibility on the Russian side and under the deputy defence minister (undersecretary for defence) Douglas Feith on the American side," said General Yury Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of the army general staff.

Baluyevsky last week headed a Russian delegation that travelled to Washington for talks on slashing nuclear arsenals following an agreement by presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush to reduce their stockpiles of strategic offensive weapons.

"The first group, dealing with issues relating to strategic arms reductions and anti-missile defence, will be tasked with framing agreements and packages of agreements on these issues," Baluyevsky said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

On Saturday the chief of the Russian armed forces general staff General Anatoly Kvashnin said Russia and the United States were preparing an agreement on reducing their offensive nuclear stockpiles that could be finalised by the summer.

The second working group, Baluyevsky said, "will deal with military and technical-military cooperation."

US officials have recently expressed an interest in Russia-US cooperation in anti-missile defence.

The third working group will examine cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

"We are planning to draw up a set of joint measures with the United States in the fight against terrorism, including carrying out joint investigations into terrorst acts," Baluyevsky said.

Meanwhile, US State Department aide John Wolf began consultations Monday with Russian officials on non-proliferation issues regarding weapons of mass destruction, diplomatic sources said.

US experts met a Russian foreign ministry delegation headed by a senior security and disarmament official, Mikhail Lysenko, the Interfax news agency reported.

The talks were expected to deal with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, their means of delivery, and also with export controls, it said.

Wolf, assistant undersecretary in the State Department's non-proliferation bureau, was due Tuesday to meet Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov and officials at the atomic energy ministry before leaving Moscow on Wednesday, the sources said.

Washington is particularly concerned at Russian arms supplies to countries it considers as rogue states.

One state on Washington's list is Iraq, whose Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz is due to visit Moscow later this week.

Moscow has significant trade with Baghdad under the UN oil-for-food programme, which allows Iraq to export oil in exchange for food, medicine and unspecified other essential goods needed by the country.

But US representatives on the UN Security Council's sanctions committee regularly block Russian contracts for imports into Iraq, concerned that they have a dual civilian-military use.

Russia and the United States are holding talks on a new Iraqi sanctions regime that would establish a list of goods with a military potential that would require authorisation from the Security Council before being sold to Iraq.

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