Washington-Moscow arms deal not ready, Lavrov says

Moscow: Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has urged US officials Thursday to accept deeper cuts and less intrusive verification measures in a nuclear weapons treaty the two countries are negotiating.

Lavrov said disagreements over such issues over the past few days had slowed efforts to reach a deal, and he agreed with the White House's assessment that President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are not expected to sign a nuclear weapons treaty when they travel to Copenhagen this week.

However, Lavrov also agreed with the White House that the US and Russia continue to make progress on negotiations for a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I, and that he hoped an agreement would be reached soon.

Russia and the US both want to reach a new accord quickly to give credibility to their efforts to persuade Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear programmes.

Lavrov blamed the US delegation for slowing negotiations in the past few days. He said the talks in Geneva have now resumed pace, but a deal is unlikely to be reached in time for Obama and Medvedev to sign it when they attend the climate summit in Copenhagen today.

"It's unlikely to happen in Copenhagen," Lavrov told reporters.

He urged the US to agree to deeper cuts in the parties' nuclear arsenals and less intrusive verification and control measures.

"Control measures must be adequate to a new treaty, not the old one," Lavrov said. "They must be lighter and less expensive."