MOSCOW, January 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister expects to talk to newly-appointed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the phone by January 26, an official foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday.

Andrei Nesterenko made the comments after acting U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said that Clinton had tried to phone Sergei Lavrov, but he was away for the weekend.

"We have received a request to organize a telephone conversation with the U.S. secretary of state. The timing for the conversation, proposed by our American partners, was not very convenient as Lavrov is currently with President Dmitry Medvedev on an official visit to Uzbekistan," Nesterenko said.

Clinton took over the secretary of state post on Thursday and over the past couple of days has spoken to the foreign ministers of Great Britain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, India, Mexico, Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Wood said Clinton had also spoken to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Woods said, "These were brief introductory calls."

Clinton has pledged to start work on trying to find a peace settlement in the Middle East following a three-week Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip which ended with a fragile ceasefire being introduced in the densely-populated enclave on Sunday.