OBAMA

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he hopes US President-elect Barack Obama will help rebuild the strained relations between their two countries.

In a speech in Washington, Mr Medvedev said that a new US administration might be able to address what he described as a lack of "necessary mutual trust".

He said he wanted to meet Mr Obama soon after he takes office in January.

The Russian leader also indicated that Russia might accept a compromise over a planned US missile shield in Europe.

Two weeks ago, he said Moscow would neutralise the possible deployment by the US of a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland by stationing short-range missiles in its western enclave of Kaliningrad.

The US insists the shield is incapable of threatening Russia and is designed solely to guard against missile attacks by "rogue states".

'Encouraged by signals'

In his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations following the G20 summit on the global economic crisis in Washington, President Medvedev welcomed the election of Mr Obama on 4 November.

"US-Russian relations lack the necessary mutual trust. We pin such hopes on the arrival of the new US administration," he explained.

Mr Medvedev said Russia had a strong "strategic partnership" with China, "a very good, full-fledged, friendly exchange".

"Of course I want to have the same kind of relations with the United States," he went on.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have been particularly strained since August by Russia's war with Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Mr Medvedev said the first step to restoring relations would be a meeting soon after Mr Obama's inauguration, "without prevarications or preconditions".

The president also said that Russia would not be the first to escalate the situation over the plans for the US missile shield in Europe.

"We will not do anything until America takes the first step," he said. Mr Medvedev said he had been encouraged by signs that Mr Obama was less enthusiastic about the shield than President George W Bush.