US President George W Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have held talks in Rome ahead of a Nato-Russia summit that will seal an unprecedented pact between the former Cold War enemies. "A new pact will be signed that gives Russia a new global status and commits the West... to a partnership with Moscow of profound political meaning," Mr Berlusconi said before a dinner with Mr Bush on Monday evening. The pact on a new Russia-Nato Council - agreed earlier this month in Iceland - allows Russia to join Nato's decision-making process, and is aimed at uniting the efforts of Moscow and the alliance in the fight against terrorism. The 20-nation summit in Pratica di Mare, outside Rome, concludes Mr Bush's tour of Europe, whose centrepiece was the signing of a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty in Moscow, which cuts US and Russian atomic arsenals by two-thirds.