Russia, U.S. unlikely to sign arms deal by end of January: report

MOSCOW, Dec 19 (Xinhua) -- Russia and the United States were unlikely to ink an agreement on further nuclear arms reduction by the end of January, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Saturday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama met in Copenhagen on Friday in an effort to find a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1), which expired on Dec. 5.

Although the two presidents highly valued the progress of the nuclear disarmament talks, a new pact was unlikely by the end of January, Kommersant cited an unnamed participant in Friday's meeting as saying.

The nuclear negotiations, launched eight months ago, failed to resolve the problem of Russia's insistence that the link between strategic offensive and defensive weapons be reflected appropriately in the new document, Kommersant said.

They were also at odds over the standards of heavy bombers and the number of delivery vehicles, it said.

Obama said on Friday the United States and Russia were "quite close to an agreement" on further nuclear arms reduction after meeting Medvedev on the sidelines of UN climate talks in Copenhagen. He said he was confident the deal would be completed "in a timely fashion."

The Russian president said only some technical details required "further work."

START-1, signed in 1991 between the Soviet Union and the United States, obliged both sides to reduce the number of their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and delivery vehicles to 1,600.

The new treaty's outline agreed by the two presidents at a July summit in Moscow included cutting the number of nuclear warheads each country has to between 1,500 and 1,675 and delivery vehicles to between 500 and 1,000.