MOSCOW (AFP) -- Ukraine's new President Viktor Yanukovych vowed Friday to end years of acrimony with giant neighbor Russia, as he paid his first visit to Moscow since taking office last week.

“This five-year period has given us the opportunity to open a new page in our relations,” Yanukovych said, referring to his five-year term, following talks with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev said Moscow and Kiev would work to resolve irritants that had accumulated under Yanukovych's predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, who angered Russia by seeking to bring Ukraine into the NATO military alliance.
“There are many questions that have been frozen recently in our relations. We have decided to reanimate them,” said Medvedev, seated alongside Yanukovych at a joint press conference in the Kremlin.
Medvedev singled out the hot-button issues of Russian gas exports to Ukraine and the future of Russia's Black Sea Fleet as subjects for discussion.
The Black Sea Fleet is based in Ukraine's port of Sevastopol under a lease which expires in 2017 and which the Kremlin is keen to extend. Yanukovych indicated he was open to compromise with Russia on the fleet's future.
“I think that very soon we will have an answer to this question which will satisfy both Ukraine and Russia,” Yanukovych said. His predecessor, Yushchenko, had insisted the fleet should leave in 2017.
Yanukovych reiterated earlier promises that Ukraine would be “a European, non-aligned state” on his watch -- a sign he does not intend to push for NATO membership.
Yanukovych later met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who urged the visiting president to bring Ukraine into a Moscow-backed customs union comprising Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
“Join the customs union,” Putin told Yanukovych, who chuckled and said nothing in response.
The prospect of Ukraine joining the Moscow-backed customs union has raised concern in the European Union and would likely damage or derail Ukraine's chances of EU integration.
Yanukovych had been expected to ask Moscow to revise its gas contract with Kiev and lower the price that Ukraine pays for Russian gas, helping to alleviate his country's dire economic crisis.
It was unclear whether Moscow had agreed to revise the contract, though Medvedev said talks would be held on the gas issue and Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Russia's state-run gas giant Gazprom, took part in the meeting between Putin and Yanukovych.
In January 2009 a payment dispute between Moscow and Kiev caused a cut-off of Russian gas supplies to over a dozen European countries. Some 80 percent of Russian gas exports to the EU pass through Ukraine.
Ukrainian media have reported that Yanukovych would also seek a multibillion-dollar Russian loan to help Kiev through an economic crisis that saw its GDP shrink 15 percent last year.
Medvedev said Moscow would promote Ukraine's needs at international financial bodies where Russia is a member.
“We are ready to help Ukraine's interests in international bodies such as the G-8, the G-20 and international financial organizations,” he said.
During talks with Medvedev earlier on Friday, Yanukovych said ties between Russia and Ukraine “should never be the way they were for the past five years,” referring to the chill in relations under Yushchenko.
Last year Medvedev accused Yushchenko of pursuing “anti-Russian” policies and swore he would not do business with him.
Yanukovych in contrast has long been seen as a pro-Moscow politician and his power base lies in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east.
However, he raised eyebrows in Moscow by visiting the EU's headquarters in Brussels on Monday for his first foreign trip. During the visit, he declared that EU integration would continue to be a priority for Ukraine.