MOSCOW – The United States and Russia have reached an agreement on "all documents" necessary to sign a new nuclear arms treaty, a senior Kremlin official said Wednesday, and the White House said the two nations are "very close" to signing it.
Czech officials announced that Prague will host the signing of the new U.S.-Russian treaty to reduce long-range nuclear weapons that would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. They did not give a date.
President Barack Obama spent an hour Wednesday in the White House briefing Democratic Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, and Sen. Richard Lugar, the committee's ranking Republican. Both would play major roles in Senate ratification of the emerging treaty.
Two senior U.S. officials in Washington said there were still technical issues to resolve in an "annex" to the main treaty, but predicted no hurdles to completing the entire deal within days. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive discussions.
One official said an announcement that the treaty is complete is expected Friday.
