A new nuclear arms reduction treaty is «95 percent ready,» Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday in the clearest indication to date that an end to wrangling over the seminal agreement may be close, AP reported. Medvedev said he is optimistic that a deal will be reached and that he was heartened by the pace of negotiations. «I expected the negotiations to take longer, but in the space of six months we have created the backbone of a document,» Medvedev said. Expert-level talks to iron out the final details of the treaty are due to take place next month in Geneva. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and retired Gen. Jim Jones, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, were in Moscow last week to discuss treaty negotiations. A new agreement would succeed the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which expired Dec. 5. The two countries had hoped to reach a deal before the end of the year. Medvedev and Obama agreed in July to cut the number of nuclear warheads each country has to between 1,500 and 1,675 under a new treaty. While sounding a positive note over the START deal, Medvedev expressed reservations about missile defense plans, however. «It is sly to talk about strategic nuclear forces without mentioning missile defense,» he said. «If nuclear missiles are launched, then defense missiles can be launched also.»
