"We consider that yesterday's meeting marks the start of a process at the heart of the European Union and we will follow closely how it develops," Ivanov said after talks here with EU foreign policy supremo Javier Solana.

Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg -- who all opposed the US-led war on Iraq -- held a controversial mini-summit in Brussels on Tuesday and called for measures including a new European headquarters to command military operations independent of NATO.

"We wish for full cooperation with the European Union not only in political and economic fields but in that of security and defence," the Russian minister told journalists, adding that relations with Brussels were "one of the priorities" of Moscow's foreign policy.

Solana for his part said the mini-summit was an "important" meeting designed to "increase the EU defence capacity."

He said the proposals by Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg to strengthen a common EU defence policy should be met with a "favorable, positive and constructive" response.

The EU foreign policy representative later insisted in an interview with Moscow Echo radio that the four countries' initiative "does not contradict the existence of NATO."

The proposals -- which went further than forecast by diplomats in the run-up to Tuesday's summit -- have the potential to provoke disquiet in Washington and London.

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon on Tuesday warned the four summit countries against encroaching on NATO's turf.

Solana also said that Russia and the European Union shared the same view on the need for a major role for the United Nations in post-war Iraq.

"There is a common approach, on the fact that international institutions, above all the United Nations, should play a very important role here," he told the radio station.

Asked about the split within the European Union on the Iraqi crisis, Solana underlined that you have to "look to the future."

Britain, whose troops fought along US forces in Iraq, and Spain and Italy were close allies of the United States in its Gulf military operation.

But EU heavyweights France and Germany were staunch opponents of the US-led war and a fresh conflict is brewing over Washington's insistence that the United Nations play only a limited role in the reconstruction of Iraq.

SPACE.WIRE