"For years NATO and Russia have been bogged down on a framework accord on air transport and an exchange of letters on ground rail transport," one diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.

"This time, we've decided to try to finish them by the NATO-Russia summit in Bucharest so that the documents can be signed by Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Russian President Vladimir Putin," he said.

Putin, who is due to step down in May, has accepted an invitation to attend the April 2-4 NATO summit in the Romanian capital, and officials have said the Russian delegation has reserved from 250 to 400 hotel rooms for the event.

"NATO and Russia want to show their willingness to continue to cooperate in concrete areas, despite their well-known diplomatic differences over Kosovo, the US missile shield and NATO enlargement," another diplomat said.

NATO -- formed almost 60 years ago in response to the expansionist policies of the Soviet Union -- cooperates with Russia in areas like the fight against drug trafficking and "anti-terror" operations, despite their tense relations.

The second diplomat said the transit accords "are not going to revolutionise the conduct of military operations" in Afghanistan by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"There are already over-flight rights agreements between NATO countries and Russia that work quite well," he said.

But with these new deals, "NATO countries will also benefit from an accord that will let them lease cargo aircraft from Russia and, given that air freight is expensive, they will also have the option of using rail," he said.

NATO's special envoy for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Robert Simmons, was in Moscow this week working on the accords.

He said that Russian help could include "regular use of Russian transport means to get supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan, possible Russian contributions to the re-equipment of the Afghan army."

ISAF comprises some 43,000 troops from 39 nations. Its aim is to spread the rule of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government to more lawless outlying areas and foster reconstruction in the conflict-torn country.

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