The meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva is intended to help broker a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which expired in late 2009. Previous negotiations in Geneva in December ended without results.

It's the first time in four decades that the United States and Russia do not have an arms treaty in operation.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev indicated last week that the new treaty was nearly agreed upon and could be finalized within a few weeks.

U.S. national security adviser Gen. James Jones and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Russian defense officials led by Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, last week in Moscow for two days of closed-door talks.

RIA Novosti reports that they discussed the exchange of telemetric data on strategic missiles so they can be identified when launched.

The negotiations come half a year after Obama and Medvedev signed an agreement pledging a reduction of nuclear warheads from 2,200 to a range of between 1,500 and 1,675, and of carrier missiles from 1,600 to a range of between 500 and 1,100.

The agreement at the time was hailed as a major step forward for U.S.-Russian relations, which had suffered over the past years with differences ranging from human rights, the independence of the former Serbian province of Kosovo, NATO's eastward expansion, a U.S.-planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe and the 2008 Russian-Georgian war.

Obama has promised to shake up U.S. foreign policy by trying to improve ties with the Kremlin in a bid to get increased support from Russia in Afghanistan and in the conflict over Iran's controversial nuclear program.

In an obvious bid to please Moscow, Washington last year abandoned plans for a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had pushed for the system to defend against possible Iranian nuclear missiles.

A successor to START would be a first measurable success for Obama's conciliatory Russia policy, criticized at home by Republicans and human-rights groups, who feel Washington is being silent regarding human-rights abuses by the former Cold War enemy.

earlier related report
Russia, US restart nuclear disarmament talks
Geneva (AFP) Feb 1, 2010 - Russia and the United States on Monday resumed marathon talks in Geneva to renew a key nuclear disarmament treaty which expired in December, a Russian diplomat said.

"As announced by the Russian Foreign Minister on Friday, the negotiations have restarted today in Geneva," a Russian diplomat told AFP, without specifying how long the new round of talks would last.

Russian and US delegations have been meeting regularly since last May to conclude a treaty to replace the landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which expired on December 5.

Discussions on a new deal had largely stalled under George W. Bush's presidency.

However, Barack Obama's arrival in the White House and his recent move to scrap missile shield plans in eastern Europe have provided fresh impetus for negotiations to move forward.

On January 27, the United States said that talks were "nearly complete."

The broad outlines of the new treaty have been clear since a summit in July, when Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev agreed that the replacement treaty should slash the number of warheads on either side to between 1,500 and 1,675.

The presidents also agreed that the number of carriers capable of delivering the warheads should be limited to between 500 and 1,100.

The United States has said it currently has some 2,200 nuclear warheads, while Russia is believed to have about 3,000.

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