Rice denies new 'Cold War' as she arrives in Moscow

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, was forced to deny that American relations with Russia had plummeted to Cold War levels as she arrived in Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

"It is not an easy time in the relationship," Ms Rice conceded on her way to the Russian capital. "But it is also not, I think, a time in which cataclysmic things are affecting the relationship or catastrophic things are happening in the relationship." Russia and the West are at crisis point over a wide range of issues, from planned US missile defence systems in eastern Europe to the future of Kosovo.

Tensions are so high that plans to discuss a "strategic partnership" at a European Union-Russian summit on Friday have been put on hold, and new EU states have called for the meeting to be cancelled altogether.

Mr Putin himself sent a chill through Western capitals by obliquely comparing America's unilateralist foreign policy to that of the Third Reich in a speech last week. Russia's assertive stance, buoyed by soaring oil and gas prices, comes at a time when America and the energy-dependent EU need the Kremlin more than the Russians need the West.

Ms Rice, a former scholar of the Soviet Union, sought to play down the rift yesterday. "Russia is not the Soviet Union, so this is not a US-Soviet relationship, this is a US-Russian relationship ... I think the parallels ... frankly, they have no basis whatsoever," she told journalists.

Moscow strongly opposes a US plan to site 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic, which the Bush administration has justified as countering the possibility of missile strikes from Iran or North Korea.

Sergei Kislyak, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, said: "Russia and the United States have many issues that we either co-operate on, or that we need to review our positions on. We are expecting a serious discussion on serious problems, both from the perspective of our own security and of European security."

EU foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, urged common sense to prevail after a trade dispute threatened the broader EU-Russia talks. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor whose country currently holds the EU presidency, rejected calls from Estonia and Poland, new members of the EU, to cancel the summit in Samara, Russia. She sent Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her Foreign Minister, to try to rescue the talks.

The EU is embroiled in a dispute with Moscow over an import ban on Polish meat, introduced in 2005 for hygiene reasons. Relations could deteriorate further if the Polish government follows Estonia in ordering Red Army monuments to be removed.

Ms Rice's most immediate task is to try to overcome Russian resistance to a United Nations draft resolution providing for the Serbian province of Kosovo to become independent under international supervision. On Saturday, the Russians issued their strongest warning to date that they might veto the measures, after the draft was tabled by the US and EU. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, said a veto "is becoming more and more likely".

Russia is concerned about safety for the Serbian minority in Kosovo. But the architect of the independence plan for Kosovo, which has been endorsed by the UN Security Council, the former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, said last week that the current plan is the best possible compromise.

International negotiators believe that Kosovo's declaration of independence is inevitable, and that it is better to have an internationally supervised process than a "messy" one.

The main points of conflict

* Kosovo: Russia threatens to veto US-backed UN plan for independent Kosovo, ending Serbian rule.

* Missile defence shield: Russia refuses to accept that US missile defence systems to be installed in Poland and Czech Republic are to counter the threats from Iran and North Korea. Mr Putin threatens to suspend Russia's obligations under the Conventional Arms Treaty in retaliation.

* Iran: US has difficulty persuading Russia to agree to further sanctions against Iran to curb the latter's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

* Democracy: US says that Russian democratic freedoms are being rolled back ahead of elections.

* World Trade Organisation: Russia angered by continuing delays in granting it membership.