The United States and Russia are "close" to reaching a deal on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the one that expired earlier this month, the leaders of the two countries said in Copenhagen on Friday, dpa reported.
President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, met on the sidelines of climate change talks in the Danish capital to discuss progress toward a successor to the 1991 START pact, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
"We've been making excellent progress. We are quite close to an agreement, and I'm confident it will be completed in a timely fashion," Obama said.
Medvedev said through a translator he was hopeful negotiations can be wrapped up in a "brief period of time."
"Our positions are very close and almost all the issues that we've been discussing for the last month are almost closed," he said. "And there are certain technical details which ... require further work."
START expired on December 5 despite intense negotiations by both sides throughout the year to reach a new deal for further reductions of nuclear stockpiles.
The goal of the new accord is reportedly to cut the number of nuclear warheads to a maximum of 1,675 per country, while limiting delivery systems to 1,100 each. Any new treaty would have to be ratified by the US Senate and Russian Duma.
News that a deal was close was first reported out of Moscow by Konstantin Kossachov, head of the foreign policy committee in the Russian parliament. He said on Russian television there were still "periods and commas" to clarify.
The United States and Russia also needed to schedule a signing by Obama and Medvedev to sign a new accord, which Kossachov said could come before the end of the year.
The two presidents had most recently, during their November 15 meeting in Singapore, stressed their commitment to getting a new treaty, with Medvedev at the time speaking of giving "the negotiations an extra push."
Earlier, the Interfax agency had reported - citing unnamed diplomatic and military sources - that the two sides had reached agreement on core issues but that some problems in hammering out the final text remained.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said there were still some problems with the technical formulations in the new accord. He blamed Washington for the slow pace. The US State Department had said one of the remaining sticking points was the verification process for ensuring both sides were complying with a new treaty.
Obama, Medvedev say nuclear deal is close
