The White House has named the signing of a missile defense cooperation agreement with Russia and the issue of the country's accession to the World Trade Organization as two priorities in its relations with Moscow in 2011.
White House aide Michael McFaul said on Friday the issues were on the top of the agenda of the forthcoming talks between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and the Russian leadership in Moscow on March 9-10.
Referring to missile defense cooperation with Russia, McFaul said the Obama administration was trying to "take an issue that used to be extremely contentious between the United States and Russia, and to try to see if we can make this an area of cooperation."
"We believe that without some kind of cooperation on missile defense, it will be difficult for us to get on to the other negotiations about reducing strategic nuclear weapons further and non-strategic weapons that are in Europe," he said, adding "we hope that at some time this year we have agreement on that."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed on Thursday Washington's plans to deploy missile defenses and Air Force units in Poland. Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said those plans undermined cooperation between Russia and the United States on missile defense.
Russia and NATO agreed to cooperate on the so-called Euro missile defense system at the Lisbon summit in November 2010. NATO insists there should be two independent systems that exchange information, while Russia favors a joint system.
On Russia's WTO membership, McFaul said the United States has worked "very closely" with Russian counterparts to speed up the process of the country's accession to the world trade body.
Russia, the only major economy outside the global trade club, is still holding talks with 12 WTO countries on the supplies of meat products to the Russian market. Chief negotiator Maxim Medvedkov has said talks could be completed in May-June 2011.
The Obama administration remains "firmly committed" to Russia joining the WTO this year, McFaul said.
"So we see these two as our two top-priority issues for 2011," he said.
WASHINGTON, March 5 (RIA Novosti)
