BBC includes the Joint Statement and the press release of The White House, 6 Jul 2009.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

The "joint understanding" signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty.

The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December.

Mr Obama said the two countries were both "committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past".

Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.

The two countries also will set up a joint commission to co-operate over energy, and fighting terrorism and drug-trafficking. Military co-operation, suspended since last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia, will be resumed.

However, on the contentious issue of US plans to base parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, the presidents merely said they had agreed to a joint study into ballistic missile threats and the creation of a data exchange centre.

'Reversing the drift'

After three hours of talks at the Kremlin on Monday, Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev publicly signed a joint understanding to negotiate a new arms control treaty that would set lower levels of both nuclear warheads and delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and bombers.

"Within seven years after this treaty comes into force, and in future, the limits for strategic delivery systems should be within the range of 500-1,100 units and for warheads linked to them within the range of 1,500-1,675 units," the document said.

Under the 2002 Treaty of Moscow, each country is allowed between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed nuclear warheads and 1,600 delivery systems - meaning each side might only be required to decommission a further 25 warheads.

Correspondents also point out that the proposed cuts would still leave the US and Russia able to destroy each other many times over.

A White House statement said the new treaty would "include effective verification measures" and "enhance the security of both the US and Russia, as well as provide predictability and stability in strategic offensive forces".

Afterwards, Mr Medvedev said the talks had been "very frank and very sincere", but that they had been, "without any doubt, the meeting we had been waiting for in Russia and the United States".

"I would like particularly to stress that our country would like to reach a level of co-operation with the United States that would really be worthy of the 21st Century, and which would ensure international peace and security," he said.

The Russian leader called Monday's agreement a "reasonable compromise", but cautioned that there remained "differences on many issues", most notably on the proposed US missile defence shield.

Mr Obama said he and Mr Medvedev were countering a "sense of drift" and were now resolved "to reset US-Russian relations so that we can co-operate more effectively in areas of common interest".

"We've taken important steps forward to increase nuclear security and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons," he said.

"This starts with the reduction of our own nuclear arsenal as the world's two leading nuclear powers the United States and Russia must lead by example, and that's what we're doing here today," he added.

The US president said he was confident a legally binding disarmament treaty would be signed by the end of the year, when Start I expires.

On Tuesday, Mr Obama will meet Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

He said last week that he thought the former Russian president had "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new".

"I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to US-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction," he told the Associated Press.

Mr Putin responded: "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future."

This summit is aimed at repairing strained US-Russian relations. Under the Bush Administration, ties between Washington and Moscow were considered almost as bad as during the Cold War.

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus, in the Russian capital, says that while the two countries have not put aside all the suspicions of recent years, they are creating mechanisms to enable a much more positive relationship in the future.

July 6, 2009

The Kremlin, Moscow

Joint Understanding on the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms

The President of the Russian Federation and President of the United States decided for their countries on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, and the conclusion in the near future of a new legally binding agreement for the replacement of the existing Treaty START, and instructed that the new agreement, among other things, contains the following elements.

1. The provision that each party will reduce and limit its strategic offensive arms in such a way that in seven years after the treaty enters into force further limits on strategic delivery systems to be lying in the 500-1100 units and their associated warheads -- in the 1500-1675 units. Specific figures on these limits will be negotiated in future talks.

2. The provisions regarding the calculation of these limits.

3. The provisions relating definitions, data sharing, notifications, elimination inspections, and verification procedures, as well as confidence-building measures and transparency, where appropriate, adapted, simplified and made less costly in comparison with the START Treaty.

4. The provision that each Party will independently determine the composition and structure of its strategic offensive arms.

5. The situation on the relationship of strategic offensive and defensive strategic weapons.

6. The situation on the impact of intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines to conventional equipment for strategic stability.

7. The situation on the basing of strategic offensive arms solely in the national territory of each Party.

8. The establishment of the executive body to address issues relating to the agreement.

9. The provision that the treaty would not apply to the existing practice of cooperation in the field of strategic offensive arms between one Party and a third State.

10. The validity of the treaty - ten years if, prior to this deadline, it will not be replaced by the subsequent treaty on reducing strategic offensive arms.

Presidents instruct negotiators will soon finalize a contract, so that they can sign it and submit for ratification in their respective countries.

Signed at Moscow, July 6, 2009, in two copies in Russian and English.

Translated from the original document in Russian.

July 6, 2006

The White House
Press Release from the Office of the Press Secretary

Joint Statement by Dmitry A. Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, and Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, on Missile Defense Issues

In accordance with the understanding reached at the meeting in London on April 1, 2009, Russia and the United States plan to continue the discussion concerning the establishment of cooperation in responding to the challenge of ballistic missile proliferation. Our countries are intensifying their search for optimum ways of strengthening strategic relations on the basis of mutual respect and interests.

We have instructed our experts to work together to analyze the ballistic missile challenges of the 21st century and to prepare appropriate recommendations, giving priority to the use of political and diplomatic methods. At the same time they plan to conduct a joint review of the entire spectrumof means at our disposal that allow us to cooperate on monitoring the development of missile programs around the world. Our experts are intensifying dialogue on establishing the Joint Data Exchange Center, which is to become the basis for a multilateral missile-launch notification regime.

The Russian Federation and the United States of America reaffirm their willingness to engage in equitable and mutually beneficial cooperation with all interested countries that share their assessments of the danger of global proliferation of ballistic missiles. We call upon all countries having a missile potential to refrain from steps that could lead to missile proliferation and undermine regional and global stability.

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