NATO and Russia hold their highest-level talks this weekend since relations broke down over last year's war in Georgia, aiming to focus on cooperation and set aside major differences.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his counterparts will convene their NATO-Russia Council on Saturday on the Greek island of Corfu.

The two-hour talks come on the sidelines of an informal meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), where Lavrov this week again floated Moscow's plans for a sweeping new European security pact.

NATO is keen that the meeting "have a forward looking character and should focus on specific issues of possible cooperation, including military to military cooperation," according to spokeswoman Carmen Romero.

Moscow pulled out of the last planned meeting of this kind in May after NATO vowed to go ahead with war games in Georgia, whose ambition to join the Western military alliance has deeply angered Russia.

NATO and Russia have been at loggerheads over missile defence plans, the recognition of the independence of Kosovo -- where NATO has a peacekeeping force -- and a number of arms treaties.

But Russia's five day war with Georgia last August and its subsequent recognition of the independence of the breakaway Georgia regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia ratcheted up tensions.

With ties still tense, the alliance sees the security pact -- floated by President Dmitry Medvedev a year ago -- as a strategy to undermine NATO.

The new, legally binding security pact would replace what Russia insists are outdated arms control treaties from the Cold War and help avoid crises like the war in Georgia.

Top EU and NATO officials insist their is no need for new structures.

"The security of Europe has schemes, has organistations, has structures and they are working properly," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in March, although he thought the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) could be improved.

NATO has generally reacted coolly to the Russian pact, which it fears is simply a plan by its old Cold War foe to do away with the 28-nation military alliance, formed 60 years ago to counter Moscow's influence.

But Romero said the ministers -- excluding US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has an elbow injury -- will discuss "how to move NRC forward in order to redynamise the political dialogue and the practical cooperation."

At an OSCE meeting in Vienna Tuesday, Lavrov sought to reassure NATO.

"We're not attempting to undermine NATO or any other organisation active in the security field,"he said.

"Quite the contrary, we are in favour of coordination and synergies between existing international structures to ensure that no single government (or) organisation in the Euro-Atlantic area works against each other."

"We're not attempting to force anything on anyone. We're only inviting you to negotiations and talks," he said.

A Greek foreign ministry official said the informal OSCE meeting would try to push forward debate about European security which would go beyond the organisations that currently exist.

"There are many regional organisations and many crises in Europe, but they are dealt with in an isolated manner and in an ad hoc basis," the official said.

"We have NATO cooperating with Russia, NATO cooperating with the EU etc. We do not have something overarching."