US and Russia resume nuclear talks

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.