U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is scheduled to meet his counterparts from other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nations and Russia in Italy later this week, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.

He will travel to the Italian island of Sicily on Thursday for a two-day meeting with NATO defense ministers, to discuss NATO's expanding role in Afghanistan and other security issues, according to a Pentagon statement.

Rumsfeld will also meet there separately with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov. Russia is not a NATO member but maintains a relationship through a NATO-Russia Council established in 2002.

The meetings, billed as informal sessions because they are not designed to make official decisions, will be held in a seaside hotel in the medieval town of Taormina, Sicily.

The U.S. government has welcomed NATO's expanding role in Afghanistan, which began as an international security force in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and then moved into northern and western areas.

It is scheduled to move to the more volatile and unstable southern reaches of the country this summer, while U.S. troops retain a key role.

The United States has been pushing the NATO allies to increase their defense spending and to modernize their forces so they can join the U.S. military in more security and counterterrorism missions beyond NATO borders.

Among other issues Rumsfeld is expected to raise at the meetings is Kosovo's stability and plans for consolidating the NATO-led peacekeeping force there.

Source: Xinhua