Progress But No Nuclear Arms Deal

Both the U.S. and Russia said Friday they had made progress in talks to reduce the number of nuclear weapons each maintains, but CBS News State Department Correspondent Charles Wolfson reports there's no deal yet.

"We're working to codify what we have have agreed to in a legally binding document," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters.

Powell said the accord might not be ready in time for President Bush's talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in three weeks.

"Remaining differences are there, and we are going to have to spend time and keep discussing them," Powell said.

If an agreement emerges by the time the two presidents meet, "fine," Powell said. "If we are unable to, the work will continue," he said.

Powell, however, predicted the two leaders would have a successful summit.

"We proceed from the premise that there is a very high probability for that and we will do everything that we can to achieve that," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters through a translator after meeting Mr. Bush at the White House.

Ivanov said he hoped "all major issues" related to the agreement and the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin could be resolved in further talks during the day with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was more cautious but also expressed optimism that the two sides could put down in writing what they have already agreed in principle — to slash their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 each.

"The president is hopeful that an agreement can be reached that he will be able to sign," Fleischer told reporters, responding to Ivanov's remark.

Powell and Ivanov are due to meet again at the spring session of the NATO alliance in Iceland May 14-16.

Talks will be held at lower levels, as well, before the opening of the summit in Moscow May 23.

"There are outstanding issues we have to agree on," Powell said, while declining at a joint news conference with Ivanov to identify what they are.

But he did say no decision had been taken on whether the accord would be in the form of a treaty or an executive agreement.

Ivanov said the deal on arms cuts was not the only document being worked on. "A treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons is now being prepared and a joint statement is being finalized on the new framework for the strategic relationship between the two countries."

The Russians want to make sure the dismantled warheads are destroyed, not stored, and there may or may not be references to anti-missile defenses in the agreement.

Determined to proceed with an elaborate anti-missile shield, Mr. Bush opted out of a 1972 treaty that outlawed national defenses against missile attack. Russia objected, but has muted its criticism to the point that some sort of compromise language may be in the offing.

The decision to formalize arms cuts in a binding document, initially resisted in Washington, was supposed to help allay Russian fears about U.S. plans for a missile defense.

President Bush announced in December that the United States was exercising its right to withdraw in six months from a Soviet-era pact that barred the building of missile defense systems like one being developed now in the United States.

Russia at first outright opposed the system, which critics fear could encourage others to build more nuclear weapons to try to overcome the effect of the defensive shield that Mr. Bush wants to build for America, and possibly his allies.

Now Russia wants to include an element of reassurance about the system in the new deal. But a senior administration official said recently that this was not a realistic goal.

Suspicious of treaties, the Bush administration is striving to keep the document to as few pages as possible, unlike the lengthy arms control agreements of the past.

Ivanov told reporters on his arrival on Wednesday that the goal of finalizing such a document was "entirely realizable."