By Agencies

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US and Russian negotiators are meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate a treaty aimed at reducing their nuclear weapons arsenals.

The two powers are hoping to find a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expired last December.

"The two sides are committed to concluding negotiations. What is important is that we arrive at a quality agreement," a US spokesman told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

Barack Obama, the US president, and Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, agreed last July that the successor treaty must cut deployed nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 per side from the current 2,200.

The Geneva talks have been closed to the media, but apparent sticking points have included verification and monitoring measures as well as Russia's opposition to US plans for missile defence facilities in eastern Europe.

'Potent message'

They also come as Western powers are pressing Iran and North Korea to curb their nuclear programmes.

A Russian diplomat told Reuters that a draft treaty would be ready "hopefully by early April".

Obama will host a nuclear non-proliferation summit on April 12-13 bringing together representatives from as many as 43 countries to help secure the world's loose nuclear material.

He called last year in Prague for a world without nuclear weapons and has made preventing the spread of atomic weapons a priority.

Russia and the United States currently hold some 95 per cent of the world's nuclear warheads.

US and Russian negotiators recently began negotiating to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which expires this year.

The talks were launched after the first meeting between Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, last month.

Disagreements between the US and Russia also remain over how to deal with Iran's nuclear programme and the US's missile system plans in Europe.