BRUSSELS: NATO and Russia resumed formal contacts yesterday eight months after they were suspended because of last year's war with Georgia, officials said.

The agenda was dominated by continuing differences over Georgia and cooperation in the Afghanistan war.

"We should not shy away from a number of issues on which we disagree," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said before the meeting between ambassadors of the alliance's 28 nations and Russia's envoy to the organization.