June 19, 2013

President Barack Obama will say on Wednesday he will pursue a new reduction in deployed nuclear weapons by up to a third below the level achieved in the "New START" treaty withRussia, a senior administration official said.

"The President will also articulate the goal of reducing U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, pledging to work with NATO allies to develop proposals that can be explored with Russia to achieve this goal," the official said.

The "New START" treaty was signed in 2010.

Obama is due to speak in Berlin at 12:30 p.m. (6.30 a.m. EDT), a city where John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan gave defiant Cold War speeches.

It comes after Obama met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit, where the two signed a new agreement on nuclear nonproliferation to replace the 1992 Nunn-Lugar agreement, which expired on Monday.

"The U.S. intent is to seek negotiated cuts with Russia so that we can continue to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures," the official said.

Obama will also say he will host a nuclear security summit in 2016 to work on securing nuclear materials and preventing nuclear terrorism, and that he will participate in the 2014 summit in The Hague.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/politics/obama-nuclear-cuts/index.html