U.S. and Russia to reduce arsenals

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached a preliminary agreement to cut American and Russian nuclear arsenals by as much as a third, instructing negotiators to draft a new accord to maintain critical verification mechanisms of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and reduce the nuclear warheads in each country. The two presidents agreed to work together to assess threats posed by countries such as Iran and North Korea and to explore cooperation in missile defense. "This is an agreement that is vitally important, because it maintains a system for verification and regulation of the world's two largest arsenals," said Daryl Kimball, of the Ploughshares-funded Arms Control Association. "But the cuts they're outlining are modest cuts. That's understandable, given the short timeline they have for completing a deal, but it also highlights how much more is left to be done."