The United States hopes a thaw in ties between Moscow and the Western military bloc could lead to greater cooperation in the war against Taleban insurgents in Afghanistan.
"We are ready again to seek together responses to modern challenges and threats to international security," Gen. Nikolai Makarov said after talks in Moscow with Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, NATO's military committee chairman.
In comments contrasting with the harsh anti-NATO rhetoric from Moscow over recent years, Makarov said Russia was ready to work on ways to resolve the "the problems that have piled up".
The bulk of NATO-Russian military cooperation was frozen after Russia sent troops to crush an August 2008 assault by US-ally Georgia on the Caucasus republic's Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Russia remains deeply suspicious of its Cold War adversary and views the expansion of the alliance to include former Soviet republics as a direct threat to Russian interests.
But given US President Barack Obama's "reset" with Russia, the frost in relations with NATO has partially melted with both sides making tentative attempts to resume cooperation.
"We need to get back to a similar pace that we were at before and then go further," a NATO official in Brussels said.
