A top US delegation led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will Saturday try to assure Europe that ties remain firm despite budget cuts, troop withdrawals and Washington's shift in focus to Asia.

Hot foreign policy issues such as Iran, Afghanistan and Syria will also loom large over the 48th annual Munich Security Conference, a gathering of world leaders, ministers and top brass that kicks off in earnest on Saturday.

Amid speculation Clinton will again press Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to sign up to a UN resolution to end the bloodshed in Syria.

The Clinton-Lavrov talks on the sidelines of the Munich security meeting are expected before the UN Security Council meets in New York for what a diplomat said will be a vote on a resolution condemning the violent repression in Syria.

A State Department official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said "there's more work to do" after Clinton spoke by phone to Lavrov during her flight Friday to Munich.

The latest draft seen by AFP does not explicitly call on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, though it "fully supports" an Arab League plan to facilitate a democratic transition.

"We're cautiously optimistic we're going to get a very strong show of support for this resolution," a senior State Department official said Friday.

But the official theme of the meeting was the state of the transatlantic alliance, with both sides at pains to stress unity despite US troop withdrawals from Europe and a new stated emphasis on ties with growing powers in Asia.

Opening the meeting on Friday, German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Europe had "nothing to fear" from the US shift to Asia, announced last November by President Barack Obama.

In a landmark speech in Australia, Obama said: "Here is what this region must know. As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia-Pacific a top priority."

But despite US plans to withdraw two of its four army brigades stationed in Europe in 2014, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, also attending the meeting, insisted that America's commitment to Europe remained solid.

"I want to make clear to our European and NATO allies that we'll maintain a significant presence here in Europe," said Panetta, visiting a US base in Germany.

"Europeans should not look at the strategic re-orientation of the Americans with apprehension. There is every reason to be calm and confident," stressed de Maiziere.

The meeting will feature a discussion later Saturday on "America, Europe and the rise of Asia" involving Zhang Zhijun, Chinese vice foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, Australian foreign minister, and top EU diplomat Catherine Ashton.

And the financial crisis will not be far from the debate, with organiser Wolfgang Ischinger saying at the start of the conference that there would be talk of "banks not tanks."

The premier of crisis-hit Italy, Mario Monti, will take part in a panel involving the head of Deutsche Bank Josef Ackermann and Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank.

Zoellick already issued a warning that Germany could find itself the target of increasing anger in Europe if it continued to drive crisis-wracked eurozone nations to ever more painful austerity measures.

"2012 could be a year where Germany becomes a leader of Europe or ... in which Germany stumbles and draws the ire of Europe," Zoellick told the conference on Friday.

"If Germany at the end of 2012 is only associated with austerity and the key countries can't maintain the political support for the economic actions, then Germany could become the target of ire," he said.

Zoellick also said that Berlin should offer more support to countries like Monti's Italy that were implementing crippling cuts at Berlin's behest.

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