Working Against Summit Deadline

U.S. and Russian negotiators are working as hard as they can to produce an agreement on nuclear arms cuts before President Bush visits Russia next month, a top U.S. official said Tuesday.

"The relationship between the United States and Russia has fundamentally changed. And I think that the summit will reflect that change in relationship regardless of what documents we have to sign," U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Associated Press Television News before conducting talks on arms control with Russian officials in Moscow on Tuesday.

"Nonetheless, we are working as hard as we can to show as much of that progress in the agreement form as we can," he said.

Bolton and a delegation of U.S. negotiators met Monday and Tuesday with Russian counterparts led by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov. Bolton has led several rounds of consultations with Russia on arms control in recent months.

Mr. Bush has promised to cut the U.S. arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia could go even lower, to 1,500 warheads from the current 6,000 that each country is currently allowed under the 1991 START I treaty.

Mr. Bush initially favored an informal deal, but later acceded to Putin's push to formalize the cuts in a legally binding agreement.

Both sides are eager to get a deal ready in time for President Bush's arrival in Russia, and U.S. and Russian officials say the agreements are nearly ready. But talks have been difficult because of Moscow's objection to the Pentagon's decision to stockpile decommissioned nuclear weapons rather than destroy them.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov discussed the upcoming summit and this week's talks in Moscow in a telephone conversation Monday night, the Foreign Ministry reported.

By Angela Charlton