US President Barack Obama met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov here on Thursday, saying that Washington and Moscow can narrow their differences over nuclear weapons.

"We have an excellent opportunity to reset the relationship between the United States and Russia on a whole host of issues," Obama told reporters after the meeting.

Those issues include nuclear proliferation, the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, conflicts in Iraq and the Middle East, and the worldwide economy, Obama said.

In response, Lavrov confirmed that Russia is doing cooperation in the settlement of disputes between the two countries, noting that "I think we work in a very pragmatic, businesslike way" to resolve differences between the two countries.

Prior to Obama's meeting with Lavrov, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had talks with the Russian foreign minister over disarmament issues, with the two sides agreeing that the row over Georgia would not affect disarmament talks between Washington and Moscow.

"It is I think old thinking to say that we have a disagreement in one area, therefore we should not work on something else that is of overwhelming importance. That's just not the way we think," Clinton told reporters after the meeting.

"If you look at what we are doing on START and non-proliferation, that has to do with the future safety of the world and the United States and Russia bear a special responsibility," she said. "So we are working very hard together."

For his part, Lavrov also attached great importance to continue committing arms reduction. "The task of further reductions of strategic offensive weapons is too important for both Russia and for the US and, for the entire world in fact, to make it hostage of any particular regime anywhere around the globe," he said.

Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev pledged in London in March to renew through negotiations an agreement to the landmark Cold War era START treaty before it expires in December.

The START, an abbreviation of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed by former US President George H. W. Bush and the then USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and came into force in 1994, will expire in December 2009.

The treaty places a limit of 6,000 strategic or long-range nuclear warheads on each side, and limits the number of strategic delivery vehicles such as bombers, land based and submarine based missiles to 1,600 each.

It was the first treaty requiring the elimination of US and USSR -- now Russian -- nuclear weapons systems. According to the treaty, its extension should begin at least a year before the expiration.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2009)