Asia-Pacific

New Russia-US arms pact ready for signing

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-25 00:50

MOSCOW: Russia and the United States have reached agreement on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, a Kremlin official said on Wednesday.

"All documents for the signing of START have been agreed," said a Kremlin official who asked not to be identified.

The official said US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would decide when to sign the landmark treaty, and that Prague was the most likely site for the signing ceremony.

Russian and US negotiators have been trying to hammer out a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1) for almost a year. They missed an initial deadline of December 5, when START expired.

The new pact is a crucial element of efforts to get Russian-US relations on track after years of tension that peaked following Russia's brief war with US-supported Georgia in 2008.

In a joint understanding last July, Obama and Medvedev said the treaty would reduce operationally deployed nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 each, with the specific number to be determined in talks.

The most recent treaty cutting the Cold War foes' nuclear arsenals, signed by George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin before ties spiralled downward, limited each side to 2,200 warheads each by 2012.