By Tom Esslemont
BBC News, Moscow
**The Russian foreign ministry says it is close to agreement with US negotiators on a successor to a Cold War-era treaty to cut nuclear weapons.**The ministry’s statement came hours before the expiry of the Start I Treaty, signed in 1991.
Talks on a new accord are expected to continue after the treaty expires.
US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed in July that a new treaty should bring deep cuts in nuclear warheads.
“*It is confusing that Start and Sort run concurrently *”
** Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent**
Washington has indicated it would like an interim agreement to come into force until a new treaty is negotiated.
The Start I agreement was signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush senior in the final days of the Soviet Union. It led to deep cuts in nuclear arsenals on both sides.
In spite of frenetic diplomatic activity and the “reset” of relations between the two sides it was always going to be difficult for a replacement arms control treaty to come into force before Friday’s deadline. So talks will continue after the old agreement expires.
Kremlin sources appear optimistic that something can be agreed while President Obama is in Europe next week to receive his Nobel Peace Prize.
But the details of the new, complex agreement have not been finalised. It will also need to be ratified in both parliaments, and that could take months.
Under the joint understanding signed in July, deployed nuclear warheads will be cut to below 1,700 on each side within seven years of a new treaty - a huge cut on Soviet-era levels.
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