Brussels - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will Thursday listen and expose her plans for Afghanistan to eager NATO foreign ministers at a meeting that is also expected to agree on the resumption of direct talks with Russia.

The meeting in Brussels is the first by the United States' new chief diplomat, who kicks-off her maiden voyage to Europe with a transatlantic dinner hosted by the Belgian government on Wednesday evening.

It takes place as the administration of President Barack Obama prepares to deploy 17,000 additional troops in Afghanistan and is busy putting the finishing touches to its strategic review of the war against the Taliban insurgency as the main contributor to NATO's operations in the country.

However, senior US officials at NATO said ahead of the meeting that Clinton was also keen to "listen to our allies, to consult, to take part in an effort of building a strong consensus, a strong sense of solidarity and shared commitment."

In this context, Clinton would also want to "underscore some of the emerging thoughts from the new administration about how we are looking at some of the challenges," including Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, US officials said.

NATO officials say much of Thursday morning's discussions will be devoted to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and its role in the August 20 presidential and provincial elections.

The alliance's supreme commanders have called for the deployment of four additional battalions in the country's south, north and west to protect voters from possible Taliban attacks during the ballot.

And NATO officials welcomed with a sigh of relief Wednesday's decision by the country's Independent Election Committee not to bring forward the poll, as had been requested by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saying it would give the alliance the time needed to boost its security measures there.

But signs of warming relations between Washington and Brussels are also evident in foreign ministers' likely decision to resume direct talks with Russia.

The main forum for such talks, the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), was suspended by the alliance in the aftermath of Russia's August invasion of Georgia and Moscow's subsequent recognition of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

But there is now a growing consensus within the 26-member alliance that such meetings should resume.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who plans to brief ministers about his recent talks with Russian officials, "hopes that tomorrow's meeting will lead to a decision to re-engage in the NRC," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai.

At the same time, the resumption of NRC meetings would "in no way diminish" NATO's condemnation of the August conflict and Russia's plans to build up its military presence in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Despite the NRC freeze, NATO and Russia are already actively cooperating in several areas, including in Afghanistan and on international counter-piracy missions.

Tension between Moscow and Washington has also been eased by Obama's suggestion this week that preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon would diminish the need for the United States to base a missile-defence system in Eastern Europe.

Plans by former US President George W Bush to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic had drawn strong criticisms from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, with Moscow viewing the deployment as a threat to its own strategic nuclear deterrent.

Thursday's is the last high-level NATO meeting before the alliance celebrates its 60th birthday at a summit in Strasbourg and its German suburb of Kehl on April 3-4. (dpa)