US President George W Bush said last night the United States would slash its nuclear warheads by two thirds in the next decade and Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin promised to try to follow suit.
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Mr Putin and Mr Bush hosting a news conference
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But the two presidents, at their fourth meeting since June, said they still had not reached an agreement that would allow the US to pursue a missile defense system while salvaging the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which expressly forbids missile defenses.
"We have different points of view about the ABM treaty," Mr Bush told a joint news conference with Mr Putin in the White House East Room. Mr Putin said Russia's position that the ABM treaty must be maintained "remains unchanged."
Both sides pledged to continue dialogue on the ABM issue.
Saying the current levels of US nuclear forces "do not reflect today's strategic realities," Mr Bush announced the United States over the next 10 years would unilaterally reduce its nuclear weapons stockpile to between 1,700 and 2,200.
Under Mr Bush's plan, warheads would be removed from the missiles but would not be fully dismantled.
Mr Putin welcomed Mr Bush's gesture and said Russia "will try to respond in kind" to the US cuts but offered no specific figure. He has proposed taking Russia's arsenal down to 1,500.
The United States currently has about 7,000 deployed warheads to Russia's 6,000. US officials had expected Mr Putin to share his own number of cuts with Mr Bush.