MUNICH (AFP) -- NATO and Russia were at loggerheads Friday over Moscow's plans to base troops in the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a military alliance spokesman said.

“The short version of this is that they agreed to disagree,” the spokesman said at a security conference in Munich, following talks between NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.
“The exchange of views on Georgia was very frank, was very clear, and certainly there was not a meeting of minds on that issue,” he said, after the highest-level informal meeting between NATO and Russia in more than six months.
Ivanov told reporters that he and Scheffer had used “direct and manly language” and had discussed issues on which their views are “diametrically opposed”, an apparent allusion to Georgia, as well as those they agree on.
NATO and Russia are gradually de-freezing high-level ties, which were put on hold over Moscow's decision to send troops into Georgia in August in retaliation for Tbilisi's actions in South Ossetia.
“The concern that allies had before the meeting on this issue remains a concern,” the NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.
Despite this, he remained upbeat about the future of ties between the old Cold War foes.
“When looking forward, the atmosphere was good,” he said, adding that Scheffer would report back to NATO defense ministers at a meeting in Krakow, Poland later this month.
When asked when formal ties might resume, he said: “I can't give a time frame for when this will happen. I think it is clearly the intention of both sides, if the conditions are right, to move to a formal level of engagement. That is the next step.”
Ivanov said: “As for the future of relations, we will live and see.”
Appathurai had said that Russia had agreed on the need to boost cooperation, both politically and military on Afghanistan, where NATO is fighting a tenacious Taliban-led insurgency.
“Afghanistan is one area where NATO and Russia see eye to eye on the importance of cooperation and I think you will see that deepen,” he said.
The conflict in Georgia in August brought tense NATO-Russia ties to a head, particularly after Moscow's decision to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia has been angered by NATO's open-door policy in regard to former Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine, which alliance leaders have said will join the alliance one day, although a fast-track approach has been ruled out.
Moscow is also vehemently opposed to independence for Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia almost a year ago and where NATO leads a peacekeeping force, and has threatened to counter the extension into Europe of a US missile shield.