The US Senate may need until 2011 to ratify a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty President Barack Obama signed with former Cold War foe Russia, the chamber's Democratic leader said Tuesday.

"I'm going to do everything I can to advance this as quickly as I can. It may take until the first of the year to get it done, but I think it's important we try to get this done," said Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the top senator would bring the treaty up for a ratification vote "as quickly as possible" after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee signs off and was "confident it can be done by the end of the year."

Treaty ratification requires 67 votes, but Democrats and their two independent allies hold only 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, meaning they will need to rally at least eight Republicans.

"This is a step forward for humanity," Reid said of the new agreement. "I can't imagine -- although I've been surprised in the past -- I can't imagine the Republicans saying no to this."

But a political fight appeared to be brewing over the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week in Prague.

Republicans have warned that Obama must submit a comprehensive plan for upgrading US nuclear laboratories and modernizing the US nuclear arsenal before the Senate takes up the treaty, and caution they will oppose the pact if they think it will hamper US missile defense plans bitterly opposed by Russia.

Top Democratic senators have said they will plan hearings on the treaty once Obama submits the full document in early May, with the aim of getting it ratified this year.

The new START cuts the number of deployed warheads by 30 percent from levels set in the last major US-Russian disarmament treaty in 2002, specifying limits of 1,550 nuclear warheads for each of the two countries.

Many of the US warheads are decades old.

earlier related report
Leaders at world summit work to halt nuclear traffic
Washington (AFP) April 13, 2010 - US President Barack Obama will urge world leaders to harden their resolve to lock down nuclear material on the second day of a summit Tuesday aimed at keeping atomic weapons out of terrorist hands.

Obama organized the 47-nation summit in Washington, the biggest hosted by a US leader since 1945, with the aim of securing loose materials in military and civilian stockpiles worldwide within four years.

The two-day gathering saw Obama meet Monday with Chinese President Hu Jintao and others in consultations he described as "impressive."

"I think it's an indication of how deeply concerned everybody should be with the possibilities of nuclear traffic," Obama told reporters.

"I think at the end of this we're going to see some very specific, concrete actions that each nation is taking that will make the world a little bit safer."

Ex-Soviet republic Ukraine, site of the horrific 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion, gave early impetus to the summit on Monday by renouncing its bomb-grade uranium.

Newly inaugurated President Viktor Yanukovych told Obama in a bilateral meeting that he would give up 90 kilos (180 pounds) of Ukraine's highly enriched uranium, the equivalent of several bombs, the White House said.

But Obama's top terrorism advisor John Brennan warned that Al-Qaeda's interest in nuclear weapons was "strong" and said the risk of nuclear terrorism was "real," "serious" and "growing."

Leaders from China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia and dozens of other countries converged on a heavily guarded conference center for the two-day meeting.

The goal is to make sure that worldwide stocks of separated plutonium and enriched uranium are destroyed or accounted for and therefore unable to fall into the hands of militant groups.

Following Ukraine's pledge, Canada made a similar promise on its own smaller stockpile, as had Chile earlier.

President Sebastian Pinera said that Chile's shipment of highly-enriched uranium to the United States served as "an example of how a smaller country can contribute concrete actions for a safer world."

On Tuesday, the United States and Russia were also to sign an accord on tidying up plutonium reserves. The deal spells out elimination of the countries' excess plutonium stores -- enough "for several thousand nuclear weapons," according to the State Department.

Overshadowing the conference was growing tension on Iran, which the United States and its allies accuse of covertly working on a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is pursuing only civilian power.

Obama and China's Hu agreed their delegations would work together at the United Nations on a US-led push to impose sanctions against Iran, a US official said.

"They are prepared to work with us," said Jeff Bader, Obama's top official responsible for East Asia on the National Security Council.

"The two presidents agreed the two delegations should work together on sanctions," Bader said.

North Korea, which defied international pressure to produce a nuclear weapon, was also likely to loom over the summit. Neither the leaders of North Korea nor Iran attended.

Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, accused Washington of being the "real" threat to global peace given its large nuclear arsenal.

"The outcome of the Washington conference is already known. Any decision taken at the meeting is not binding on those countries who are not represented at the conference," Soltanieh told ISNA news agency.

Another notable absentee from Washington was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who dropped plans to attend, reportedly because of concern that Islamic states planned to press for Israel to open its own nuclear facilities to international inspection.

Illustrating the dividing lines in the flashpoint Middle East, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said he hoped sanctions could be avoided against Iran, but that Israel should be pressured over its refusal to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Ahead of the summit Obama branded attempts by non-state groups to obtain nuclear devices "the biggest threat to US security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term."

"This is something that could change the security landscape of this country and around the world for years to come," Obama said Sunday.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed that keeping fissile material out of the hands of extremist groups was vital, but said he could not abandon his own nation's nuclear weapons program "on a unilateral basis, in a world as dangerous as the one in which we live today."

"I have inherited the legacy of the efforts made by my predecessors to build up France as a nuclear power. And I could not give up nuclear weapons if I wasn't sure the world was a stable and safe place," Sarkozy told CBS News in Washington.