US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev yesterday finalised a historic new nuclear arms reduction agreement, slashing the number of warheads by 30 per cent.
In a 10 a.m. (1400 GMT) telephone call, the two leaders sealed an agreement for a successor to the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) that expired in December, both sides said.
The new deal specifies limits of 1,550 deployed warheads, which is about 30 percent lower than a previous upper warhead limit set in 2002.
Washington has said it currently has some 2,200 nuclear warheads, while Russia is believed to have about 3,000.
The treaty, which must be ratified by the US Senate and the Russian Duma, limits missile forces to 800 deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine launched ballistic missile launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear weapons.
The cap on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine launched missiles is set at 700, the White House said.
The White House said both sides would sign the new treaty on April 8 in Prague, where Mr Obama gave a major speech a year ago calling for a world free of nuclear weapons while acknowledging he may not live to see that goal achieved.
Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev set a goal in July of slashing the number of warheads on either side to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads and the number of "carriers" capable of delivering them to between 500 and 1,100.
But the original treaty, a cornerstone of Cold War-era strategic arms control, expired on December 5, without negotiators reaching agreement on a successor accord despite prolonged, difficult talks that dragged on for months in Geneva.
An agreement hands Mr Obama his second major political victory in a week after he signed his landmark healthcare overhaul into law on Tuesday.
Analyst Miles Pomper called the agreement "a significant foreign policy achievement", as it comes before a nuclear security summit next month and the review conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May.
He said the agreement will give "some positive momentum" to the NPT conference, which requires nuclear powers like Russia and the United States to show progress on disarmament.