The third round of talks on replacing the Cold War-era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) are officially to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, a US official said. However, a Russian diplomatic source said the delegations met on Monday at the US Mission.

The discussions are meant to feed into a summit between US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow in early July.

The attempt to strike a new deal to succeed START, which expires on December 5, symbolises a thaw in US-Russian relations in recent months.

Last week, Medvedev reiterated Russia's desire for much deeper cuts in strategic arsenals than those achieved by START when it came into force in 1991, echoing the US view.

However, the Russian leader underlined that the cuts could only come about if the United States addressed Moscow's "concerns" on missile defence, an issue on which Washington has dug its heels in.

"We cannot agree with the US plans to deploy a global missile defence system. I want to underline that our proposals to cut (nuclear warheads) are only possible if the United States meets Russia's concerns," Medvedev was quoted as saying.

"In every case, the issue of the connection between strategic offensive and defensive weapons must be definitely fixed in any agreement," he added.

The senior US negotiator, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Rose Gottemoeller, said after the second round in Geneva this month that the talks had been "productive."

Apart from deeper weapons cuts, any deal "should include effective verification measures drawn up from our experience in implementing START," she added.

START secured the verifiable destruction of offensive weaponry, including a complex set of cuts in nuclear warhead numbers.

The United States and Russia subsequently agreed in 2002 on the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), also known as the Moscow Treaty, which agreed on deeper reductions in the deployment of strategic warheads to 1,700-2,200 each by 2012.

However, SORT only sought the withdrawal of weapons, not their outright destruction, and had no verification provisions.

A disarmament expert at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, who declined to be named, pointed to the influence of the broader geopolitical climate and other disarmament issues on the START talks.

Apart from Moscow's demands for concessions on the US missile defence shield, which is meant to be partly based in Poland and the Czech Republic, close to Russia's borders, the Kremlin also wants a linkage with conventional or tactical weapons deployed in Europe, he said.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is seeking Russian support on other geopolitical issues, including Iran's nuclear programme.

Agreement on START by the end of the year was unlikely, the expert felt, even though both superpowers acknowledged "the importance of sending a positive message."

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