Straw visits Russia to 'build trust'

Anti-Taleban fighters have received help from Russia

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has been meeting his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov during a 'trust building' trip to Moscow.

He will also be meeting the defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, as he aims to stress the new solidarity between Russia and the West in the wake of the US terror attacks

We have to grasp this opportunity to treat each other as equals and trust each other as friends

Jack Straw

Speaking as Prime Minister Tony Blair embarked on his own diplomatic mission, including Syria and Saudi Arabia, Mr Straw is due to say a "balance of trust" was needed in the fight against international terrorism.

The attacks of 11 September presented an opportunity to build an entirely different kind of relationship between Russia and its "partners in the West," Mr Straw will say.

He will go on: "We have to seize this opportunity. Where previously there was a balance of power we now have to build a balance of trust."

Common strategy

The common goals of destroying Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and rebuilding Afghanistan outweighed "whatever differences" that still existed between Russia and the West, Mr Straw is expected to say in a speech.

"We have therefore set about translating these common interests into a common strategy to achieve them."

Mr Straw visited Warsaw on his way to Moscow

Security now depended on "not competition but co-operation, not rivalry but partnership, not terror but trust".

"We have to grasp this opportunity to treat each other as equals and trust each other as friends," he will say.

"We are all on the same side now."

The foreign secretary's visit to Moscow was arranged as far back as July but has since been overtaken by international events.

On Tuesday Mr Straw stopped off in the Polish capital of Warsaw to hold discussions with the Polish government ahead of his Moscow trip.

EU enlargement was set to dominate the agenda of those talks although it is thought the events in the wake of the 11 September would also have been discussed.