Rocky US-Russian relations will complicate US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's bid to win Moscow's support to contain Iran and North Korea over their nuclear ambitions, analysts say.

Rice heads to Moscow this week after a visit in Asia aimed at pressing Washington's partners to fully enforce UN sanctions against North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear test.

The fact that Rice has to travel to Moscow is already a bad sign, said Anatol Lieven, an expert at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank.

"After the way they (the Russians) feel they have been treated, they don't see any reason to do anything in particular for America," Lieven said...

"The Russian administration is not actually trying to stir things up but it is also not going to give in anything of what it sees is in its own interest, except in return for serious concessions from Washington," Lieven said.

Lieven notably referred to Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization, which has yet to be cleared by the United States.

On the North Korean nuclear bomb test, Russia will likely take the same position as China, which it considers its main ally in the face of what it sees as an increasingly anti-Russian US administration, the analyst said...

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