NATO and Russia agreed on Friday on the need to step up cooperation against militants in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said, but they failed to set a timetable for normalising ties strained by the Georgia war.

Spokesman James Appathurai said NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov "agreed to disagree" on Russian plans to establish military bases in Georgia in the first NATO-Russia political level contacts since Moscow's intervention in the pro-Western former Soviet state last August.

However, Appathurai added after the meeting at a security conference in Munich: "Afghanistan is one area where NATO and Russia see eye to eye on the importance of cooperation and I think you will see that deepened."

He said the two sides already had an agreement on land transportation of non-lethal goods for the NATO-led Afghan operation and the next step could be to broaden this to air transportation.

He said there was shared view that cooperation on Afghanistan should be stepped up both militarily if possible and politically, but Ivanov stressed this did not mean sending Russian troops.

Appathurai said De Hoop Scheffer had also asked Ivanov what had brought about a decision by Kyrgyzstan to announce plans to close a base used by U.S. forces and some NATO allies to supply forces in Afghanistan, a move which came after the country secured aid from Moscow.

He said relations between NATO and Russia, that were scaled back after the Georgian war, remained at an "informal level" and would be discussed further by NATO ministers late this month and next and at a summit in April.

Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that Russia sought normalised relations with NATO, which would include resumption of formal meetings of the decision-making NATO-Russia Council.

He said this would come, but it should be "at the initiative of NATO".

"It's a common interest to unite our efforts against the Taliban in Afghanistan so we have a lot of work in future," Rogozin said.