The United States may be ready to sign a formal accord committing it and Russia to mutually-linked long-range nuclear missile cuts, a senior US diplomat in Moscow said on Monday.

Washington did not want to negotiate an arms control treaty but was prepared to put in place binding verification measures to ensure that both sides respect the terms of the agreement, the official told journalists, speaking on condition of anonymity.

During a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Washington last week, US President George W. Bush announced a unilateral US intercontinental ballistic missile cut to the level of 1,700-2,200 warheads over the coming 10 years.

Putin followed later in the day by saying that Russia would also slash its stockpile of long-range nuclear weapons from around 6,000 to 2,000 warheads, although he gave no time frame for such a reduction.

Both Bush’s and Putin’s announcements go below the levels of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty signed by Moscow and Washington in 1993.

Bush explained that he did not want to waste time in long-drawn out arms control negotiations, but the unilateral US move provoked rumblings of discontent among the Russian military, concerned that Russia has no certainty Washington would deliver on its commitment.

“We do believe there is no longer the need for the complex and tortuous negotiations and the very long and detailed agreements of the Cold War era,” explained the US official.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t find a more streamlined approach to put these limits on the official record and incorporate agreed and binding measures of verification.

“What form it takes remains to be determined. There are a whole range of diplomatic options, from exchanges of letters to politically binding to legally binding agreements, and that will be focus of discussions in coming weeks,” he added.

Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said Monday that the United States is not interested in modifying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty to accommodate new tests of its proposed national missile defense system but wants to scrap it altogether.

“We’re not interested in going down that road, because it seems to us somewhat a waste of effort to modify a treaty whose basic purpose has been overtaken by events,” the official told journalists in Moscow, speaking on condition of anonymity.

During their summit last week, Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin failed to agree on a way for the United States to avoid treaty constraints and proceed with a rigorous testing program of its missile defense system.

The accord, based on the concept of mutual assured destruction, bars the United States and Russia from having nationwide defenses against ballistic missiles.

Russia has pushed for the ABM treaty to be amended to allow strictly limited tests but Washington wants more freedom of action.

The US diplomat repeated warnings that the United States was determined to forge ahead with the system’s testing program, which could soon mean withdrawing from the treaty.

“Until the treaty ceases to have effect, we will only test within the limits of the treaty, but that’s becoming an increasingly uncomfortable situation for us,” he said.

“This treaty is beginning to get in the way of what we have set as a high national priority, the development of an effective but limited missile defense system,” the official added.

Last month, in a bid to avoid controversy ahead of the Bush-Putin summit, the Pentagon called off two missile defense tests that US officials said could have been seen as a violation of the accord.

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