The talks mark the resumption, after a generation of drift, of a process begun in 1969 at the height of the Cold War and are a central element of US President Barack Obama's stated desire to "reset" frayed ties with Russia.

The initial two-day negotiating session was due to start Tuesday. Heads of the US and Russian delegations held a technical meeting in Rome last month, but the Moscow talks marked the formal start of the process, officials said.

Disagreements between the two countries on the size, nature and purpose of their nuclear arsenals and strategic weapons systems abound, but both have indicated recently that the political will to overcome them now exists.

"There are good chances for bringing our positions closer and for working out agreements," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week after meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington.

Pressure on negotiators was heightened after the White House announced Obama will travel to Moscow on July 6 for a summit meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on reducing nuclear weapons arsenals and other security challenges.

The meeting will allow the United States and the Russian Federation an opportunity "to deepen engagement on reducing nuclear weapons, cooperating on non-proliferation, exploring ways to cooperate on missile defense, addressing mutual threats and security challenges," the White House said in a statement.

The main agreement governing US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), expires on December 5 and there has so far been little specific discussion on what the two sides should do next.

Areas of discord include the limits on nuclear warhead numbers, whether the treaty should cover delivery systems like bombers and missiles, verification procedures and other issues of information sharing and confidence-building.

But despite the technical complexity and tight schedule of the negotiations, both countries have deep-seated national interests in ensuring the talks happen and conclude with results both can hold up to the world as meaningful progress.

The format of the talks gives Russia strategic "parity" with the United States, a matter diplomats say is of huge importance to Moscow as it seeks to recover global prestige enjoyed prior to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

And a return to direct engagement in substance with Moscow on a bilateral matter of international importance helps dispel perceptions that Washington acts unilaterally and will smooth cooperation with Russia on other issues.

That the United States has a need to enter disarmament talks with Russia for reasons that go beyond just limiting nuclear weapons was acknowledged in a report published earlier this month by a high-level Washington policy group.

"The moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia," the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, headed by former defense secretary William Perry, said.

"In support of its arms control interests and interest in strategic stability more generally, the United States should pursue a much broader and more ambitious set of strategic dialogues" with Russia and others, it said.

For Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired general involved on the Soviet side in the landmark Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) of the 1970s and the START talks of the 1980s, the new US-Russia negotiations are of major significance.

"It is not just about the numbers of weapons," Dvorkin told AFP. "The process itself is important, because the idea of total nuclear disarmament is out there now.

"The process is long -- it will take decades. But it is necessary, because in the final analysis the liquidation of all nuclear weapons is a prerequisite for a new global security arrangement that is not based on the threat of force," he said.

The US delegation to the negotiations is headed by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller while the Russian delegation is headed by Anatoly Antonov, head of the foreign ministry department for security and disarmament.

earlier related report
Medvedev worried on NATO, lauds 'positive' bond with Obama
President Dmitry Medvedev stressed concern Saturday about NATO moves near Russia and called on the bloc to return to principles pledged with Moscow in 2002 to improve security across Europe.

"Certain things that are happening cannot but worry us," Medvedev told a joint news conference alongside visiting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, referring to activities like NATO's current exercises in Georgia.

Medvedev called on the alliance to return to the "principles that were agreed at the Pratica di Mare summit regarding mutual relations between Russia and NATO."

Pratica di Mare is the seaside airbase outside Rome where Medvedev's predecessor Vladimir Putin and NATO leaders signed a summit agreement enhancing alliance coordination with Moscow through a new NATO-Russia Council.

That agreement, made in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, was hailed at the time as big breakthrough and the start of a new era in cooperation among one-time Cold War foes against shared threats.

"Those were good principles and we should return to them in order to further promote dialogue between Russia and the Italian Republic, dialogue between Russia and the NATO states," Medvedev said.

The Italian leader, who met Putin on Friday in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi, echoed Medvedev's comments.

"As far as relations with NATO are concerned, we are hoping to return to those foundations which we refer to as the 'spirit of Pratica di Mare'," Berlusconi said, speaking through an interpreter.

In an interview broadcast on national television Saturday, Medvedev also said Russia would would push back on NATO expansion but provided no further details.

The Kremlin has sternly criticized NATO for forging ahead with exercises this month in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, saying such activity less than a year after Russia and Georgia fought a war was reckless and destabilizing.

Despite the war games and recent spy scandals that again soured Russian ties with the West, Medvedev indicated that Russia was still determined to turn the page on its fraught relations with the United States.

He lauded what he described as the "normal, positive dialogue" unfolding between Russia and the administration of US President Barack Obama.

"So far, events are developing pretty well and I am awaiting my colleague in Russia to continue the dialogue," he said.

0 Obama is scheduled to visit Russia July 6-8.

After his first face-to-face meeting with Obama in London on April 1, Medvedev called Obama "my new comrade" while Putin, now the tough-talking prime minister, said this week he would be pleased to meet the US president.

Medvedev's meeting with Berlusconi on Saturday came a day after the Italian leader held talks with Putin in Sochi.

Putin and Berlusconi oversaw the signing of an agreement between Russian gas giant Gazprom and Italy's Eni to double the capacity of a key pipeline seen as a rival to the EU-led Nabucco pipeline project.

Berlusconi -- a rare ally of Moscow in Western Europe who has frequently defended Russia and flaunted his friendship with Putin -- said Friday that Russia was a "friendly" country that kept its promises as a gas supplier.

Saturday's talks between Berlusconi and Medvedev also focused on the upcoming G8 summit Italy will host in July, the Russian president said.

Russia intended again to raise ideas for making its national currency, the ruble, a global reserve unit, he said.

Among other ideas Russia would bring to the table at the summit focusing on the global economic crisis would be the Kremlin's proposal for a supra-national currency, Medvedev said.

Russia first floated the supra-national currency idea at the G20 summit last month in London, but the ideas have received a lukewarm response so far.

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