Washington: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of OSCE talks in Vienna next week, a senior US official said Friday.

Tillerson is due in the Austrian capital for the 57-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's 24th Ministerial Council on December 7 and 8.

According to a senior official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, Tillerson and Lavrov could stage their bilateral US-Russia meeting on Thursday.

Relations between Washington and Moscow are tense, amid disagreements over Russia's interventions in Ukraine and Syria and alleged illegal interference in US and European elections.

But the OSCE council will give the rivals a forum to address the crisis in Ukraine, as world powers attempt to negotiate terms for a UN force to protect OSCE peace monitors.-APP