U.S. confident on missile defense work with Moscow

(Reuters) - The United States is confident it can replace decades of distrust over missile defense with "genuine cooperation" on an issue Russia casts as crucial to ties, a top U.S. diplomat said in remarks published Friday.

William Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, spoke during a Moscow visit aimed to build on the improvements the past two years have brought in ties with Russia.

President Barack Obama's administration is eager to keep up the momentum after the former Cold War foes capped a "reset" in relations by putting the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty into force last week.

"We firmly believe that it's not in the interest of either of our countries for there to be a pause," Burns told the Interfax news agency and the newspaper Kommersant in an interview. "We need to redouble our efforts."

Moscow has warned it could withdraw from the New START treaty, which lowers limits on strategic offensive weapons, if the United States or NATO develops missile defenses that compromise Russia's security by weakening its nuclear arsenal.

Burns said he did not believe that would happen.

"I firmly believe that there is a genuine possibility for cooperation between us -- between the United States and Russia, and also between Russia and NATO -- on missile defense," he said, according to a State Department transcript.

"I am optimistic that we'll find a basis for genuine cooperation on this issue," Burns said.

While he was in Moscow, Washington sent Assistant Secretary of State for arms control Rose Gottemoeller to Poland and the Baltic states to reassure them that U.S.-Russian cooperation on missile defense would not be at the expense of their security or give Moscow a veto in NATO.

With New START in force, Burns said the United States is looking forward to beginning "conversations" with Russia on further reductions in nuclear arms, including tactical weapons and non-deployed weapons.

Analysts say clinching further cuts will be a challenge because of security concerns and politics in Russia and the United States, both of which hold presidential votes in 2012.

Burns also said the United States hopes Russia will join the World Trade Organization this year and stressed the need "to widen and deepen our cooperation in a range of areas, but particularly in the economic area."

Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said both Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "have stressed the importance for Russia's future of transparent, accountable, democratic government."

"That's not easy," he said. "As many Russians know far better than I do, the truth is that there are problems and abuses in the path of that progress, whether it's pervasive corruption; the unsolved murders of journalists like Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politikovskaya; attacks on human rights activists; and the selective application of justice.

"It's deeply in the interest of Russia, in our view, to address those challenges," he said.