U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has met with her Czech counterpart in Washington for wide-ranging talks.

Clinton said she used her Thursday talks with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg to thank the Czech Republic for increasing its troop contributions to the mission in Afghanistan. She also offered condolences for the recent loss of a Czech soldier.

Clinton and Schwarzenberg also discussed efforts to promote democracy and human rights around the world and ways to strengthen the United States and Czech Republic's economic relationships.

She said over the past year, the two countries have signed a joint declaration on civil nuclear cooperation and begun talks on economic, scientific and security cooperation. She said these talks would continue in September.

The Czech foreign minister said his country is looking forward to further cooperation with the United States.

The Czech Republic will host an early warning system as part of the U.S. missile defense shield in Europe. The project has met with fierce resistance from Russia.

Clinton thanked the Czech official for what she called his country's “strong support of a European missile defense and NATO missile defense system.”