US wants separate summit with Putin at G8 in May: Moscow

The United States wants to hold a separate summit with Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of Eight meeting at Camp David in May, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

"The Americans want a separate, independent Russian-American summit," Lavrov was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying after returning from a G8 foreign minister meeting in Washington.

He said that Putin will receive an official briefing on the US proposal after he is inaugurated on May 7 for a third term as Russian president.

"We will report to the president when he assumes his powers," Lavrov said.

"We are disposed to have continuity in relations, to continue to seek further spheres of shared interests-- of which there are many -- and where interests coincide, to agree on moving forward," he said.

Lavrov said that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a women's right event in Russia's northwestern city of Saint Petersburg in June and that Moscow would hold talks with Clinton during that visit.

He also said that the US and Russia failed to reach any breakthrough on the contentious issue of a NATO-backed missile defence shield in Europe, which Moscow fiercely opposes, during their talks on the sidelines of the G8, but would continue the discussions.

"No agreement on missile defence has taken shape between Russia and the United States," but the two sides agreed that "experts must continue their work," he said.