Anna Arutunyan and Ed Bentley

Amid an apparent fad for reset buttons, Russia and Britain are keen to wipe the slate clean, with Foreign Secretary David Miliband, a fierce critic of Russia, set to visit Moscow early next month.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin will visit London on Nov. 5 for a meeting of a Russian-British business commission, the first for a year. Kudrin will also hold talks with financiers in the City of London about the Kremlin's upcoming $18 billion bond placement.

Despite hovering extradition issues that caused relations to spin out of control just over two years ago, Miliband's counterpart, Sergei Lavrov is pushing for a reset, hoping to focus on problems like Iran and Afghanistan instead.

A British Foreign Office spokesperson confirmed that "the Foreign Secretary will visit Moscow at the beginning of November at the invitation of Foreign Minister Lavrov. He expects to meet a range of politicians, business leaders and representatives of civil society.

As the first visit by a foreign secretary to Russia since 2004, the trip will send a powerful message that both sides are eager to start over.

"The priority is for Lavrov and Miliband to be sitting in a room together and talking," said Chris Gilbert, of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce. "That's how things start: address issues that are still lingering, and as Lavrov said, hit the reset button."

Diplomats on both sides said that Miliband would be making a working visit to Moscow in the first days of November. "The foreign secretary's visit is part of a continuing dialogue between London and Moscow across the range of issues,the Foreign Secretary's office said in an e-mail. The diplomats would discuss "major global challenges, in which Russia plays a key role, including: the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iran, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; climate security; tackling the global economic crisis. Russia is an important trading partner for the UK and British firms have invested heavily in Russia."

Russia has pledged aid in non-military transit for troops in Afghanistan, but has remained cautious about new sanctions against Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme - all issues of interest for London, as well as the US.

Behind this eagerness for new cooperation looms another wrinkle, however, as Russia put out an extradition request for Hermitage Capital Management CEO William Browder, a portfolio investor in Russia who had struggled to improve transparency at firms he invested in.

Already on the roster was a stalemate over the alleged poisoning of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, with Britain demanding the extradition of Russian Duma deputy Andrei Lugovoi, a suspect in the case.

Previously, Russia has demanded the extradition of business tycoon and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky and Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev, to no avail.

Britain's Foreign Office has suggested that the Lugovoi extradition may be brought up. Asked about this, a spokesperson said, "We have not made and will not make any concessions in our stance on the Lugovoi case. The Crown Prosecution Service believe Lugovoi has a case to answer in the UK, and we remain committed to seeing full Russian cooperation."A source close to Russia's Foreign Ministry said that these issues would likely arise during the talks. "If the Russia-US reset was brought on by the necessity to rethink global security... then the Russia-UK reset is needed because of the negative line London has taken in regards to not extraditing criminals or suspects to Moscow, as well as in its exaggerated depiction of the Litvinenko problem."

But Gilbert said that "for many businessmen, [the Litvinenko affair has] become old news."

Browder, who was denied entry to Russia in late 2005 on the grounds that he was a threat to national security, is now alleging that a group of corrupt Russian officials, who used companies connected with Hermitage without his knowledge, defrauded the Russian government of $382 million. His extradition request, on allegations of tax evasion, was placed a week after Browder's lawyers asked Russia's Audit Chamber to investigate the case.

Browder could not immediately be reached for comment.

A British expert close to Russia-British diplomatic circles said there was a lot of "unfinished businessthat included Litvinenko and Berezovsky, but predicted that "the emphasis will be on areas [where] we can cooperate better.

These will likely be international issues such as Iran and Afghanistan, as well as trade and financial relations. "It is quite striking that [Finance Minister Alexei] Kudrin has been in London doing various bits of Russian financial business. The City [of London] ... remains a core place for Russian companies wanting to international financial-type business." Oßn Browder, the expert said it would certainly be an "issue of concern" between Miliband and Lavrov.