Russia, U.S. need broader cooperation agenda - lawmaker

MOSCOW, July 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and the United States need to update their approach to bilateral relations and consider pooling their efforts in various parts of the world, a Russian lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, said it was important to look for new areas of cooperation since the focus of bilateral ties had remained effectively unchanged in recent years.

"The problems that are created for international peace by piracy off the Somali coast and uncontrolled arms trafficking in the sub-Saharan area are new threats that Russia and the U.S. should work on together," he said at a RIA Novosti news conference.

He said Russian-U.S. cooperation was "selective," centering on topics on which the Soviet Union and the United States had cooperated during the detente era, including nuclear nonproliferation and the Middle East peace process.

The lawmaker said that it was no surprise the focus of President Barack Obama's July 6-8 visit to Moscow would be strategic nuclear arms reductions.

The Russian foreign minister said on Tuesday that Moscow hoped progress would be made on both missile defense and strategic arms cuts during the visit.

Sergei Lavrov said that Russian-U.S. ties had received a boost over the past few months, while relations between the two countries "have entered a period of change." He also said that Obama's visit to Russia would become "a landmark" in improving relations.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that any strategic arms cuts will only be possible if the United States eases Russia's concerns over Washington's plans for a missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The U.S. military recently reiterated its commitment to missile defense, citing a growing threat from North Korea and Iran, but suggested plans for a European site may change.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested that Russian facilities could be part of the missile defense system, but Moscow has rejected this idea, saying there could be no partnership "in building facilities that are essentially designed to counter Russia's strategic deterrence forces."