Top U.S. officials say "impressed" by Russia's Medvedev

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even before she landed in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was talking about Russian President-elect Dmitry Medvedev as someone she thought she could do business with.

With U.S.-Russia relations at a low, the Bush administration is looking anxiously at Medvedev, who takes over as president in May while outgoing President Vladimir Putin is expected to become his prime minister.

Both Rice and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during talks with the incoming and outgoing presidents how important it was to get U.S.-Russia ties on a better footing.

"We want to lay a good foundation for U.S.-Russia relations going into the future despite our differences," said Rice, who warmly greeted Medvedev and congratulated him on his win in this month's presidential election.

The two major powers, while working together on issues such as Iran and North Korea, have disagreed strongly over a U.S.-proposed missile defense system in Europe, Kosovo's independence and a range of other security issues.

The United States has also criticized what it says is an erosion of civil liberties, press freedoms and democratic norms under Putin.

"The possibilities are there for change," Rice told reporters of Medvedev, shortly before landing in Moscow.

Experts say U.S.-Russia relations have been adrift, with the United States bogged down in Iraq and focusing on Afghanistan and other areas.

"Russia has figured pretty far down the scale and that has had consequences," said Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank.

A former Soviet expert, Rice said she had met Medvedev "probably six or seven times" before and came away impressed from the Kremlin meeting where he hosted Rice and Gates along with the Russian defense and foreign ministers.

"He was very much on top of the brief. We were able to talk about some of the opportunities that we faced," said Rice.

Gates, a former Soviet expert at the CIA, said his encounter with Medvedev was in sharp contrast with a meeting in the 1970s with former Cold War Russian President Leonid Brezhnev when a treaty was signed between the United States and Russia freezing certain weapons systems.

"I found Medvedev thoughtful, articulate. As Condi said, he was clearly on top of his brief -- foreign policy and national security issues have not been his thing before -- but he discussed them very, very well, this afternoon. I was impressed," said Gates at a joint news conference with Rice.

Asked how he found Brezhnev, Gates replied: "You don't want to go there ... That's when I knew we would win (the Cold War)."

Medvedev also sounded a conciliatory note in his first talks with the Americans, by saying there was a common will to solve problems between Moscow and Washington.