Moscow  - EU external relations chief Benita Ferrero-Waldner was optimistic on a visit to Moscow Tuesday that long-delayed negotiations on a new EU-Russian partnership agreement would begin this month, Interfax news agency reported.

Ferrero-Waldner said the EU-Russia summit set for June 26-27 in the Siberian city of Khanty Mansiisk would be "a very good opportunity to begin negotiations."

But she was hesistant to say how long talks for a new EU-Russian accord could last.

"These will be complex negotiations for a hefty and substantial accord ... which will be our legal base for all-round attitudes. We need time as a result to reach a really good accord," she was quoted as saying Tuesday.

The existing Partnership and Cooperation Agreement expired in November 2007, but several attempts to establish a new pact regulating EU-Russian energy, security and trade relations have been blocked by the EU's former Soviet members states in bilateral feuds with Moscow.

Warsaw first objected to renewed negotiations before the lifting of a Russian ban on Polish meat imports, and the EU foreign ministers barely agreed on a mandate Monday after Riga objected to Russia closing its main oil pipeline and its refusal to hand over men suspected of committing atrocities in Lithuania in 1991.

In Moscow on Tuesday Ferrero-Waldner said while that Lithuania and other states concerns would "certainly be taken into account" talks for a new agreement would depends on the "European commission which has a mandate for the realization of negotiations."

Russian diplomats, however, have voiced skepticism that an accord will be reached before the year is out, and analysts in Moscow believe that Russia is in no rush to settle on a new agreement, preferring to deal with bilaterally with EU member states. (dpa)