MOSCOW: Russia wants major new cuts in nuclear stockpiles to be proposed by US President Barack Obama on Wednesday to be expanded beyond Russia and the United States and include other nuclear armed states, a top Kremlin aide said.
"The process of cutting down nuclear potential should include other countries with nuclear weapons," Russian diplomats told Washington ahead of Obama's expected speech on the subject in Berlin, foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said.
"The situation now is not like in the 1960s and 1970s when only the United States and the Soviet Union held talks on reducing nuclear arms," Ushakov said at a briefing in Moscow.
Now we need to look more broadly... and increase the circle of participants in possible contacts on this matter."
US officials said Obama will use his speech to propose cutting US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to around 1,000 each, and also seek reductions in tactical nuclear arms stocks in Europe.
Obama has informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of his planned proposals, Ushakov said, after the two leaders had a frosty meeting at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday.
But Ushakov did not comment on whether Russia would agree to such cuts.
"We need to see what concretely the Americans are proposing. It's too early to comment on this question," he said.
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