"One of my goals is to prevent nuclear proliferation generally. I think that it's important for the United States, in concert with Russia, to lead the way on this," Obama said at a White House news conference late on Monday.
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov signaled on Sunday Russia's readiness for talks on a new nuclear arms pact with Washington.
"I believe some special mechanism will be created on this score and negotiations will start quite quickly and actively as soon as the U.S. side is ready for them," Ivanov said after his talks with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a security conference in Munich.
Although there were signs of new willingness to cooperate on some issues, such as nonproliferation, the speeches of Ivanov and Biden at the conference showed continued differences over U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in Central Europe.
Ivanov said Moscow would not deploy missiles in Kaliningrad if Washington did not go ahead with the missile system, while Biden pointed to the Iranian threat and restated Obama's position that it would be developed if it was "proven to work and cost-effective."
Washington has agreed with Warsaw and Prague plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic by 2013. The United States says the defenses are needed to deter possible strikes from "rogue states" such as Iran.
Russia has consistently opposed the missile shield as a threat to its national security and officials have repeatedly expressed the hope that Obama would not follow through with his predecessor's missile defense plans.
