The Russian and U.S. leaders, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, agreed on Friday that the new arms reduction treaty will be signed on April 8 in Prague.
The announcement came after a phone conversation between the two leaders, which took place earlier on Friday.
"The presidents thanked each other for their cooperation. Medvedev said this treaty reflected the balance of interests of both states," Medvedev's press secretary Natalya Timakova said.
"The negotiations did not always go smoothly, but the constructive attitude of negotiators and active participation of the Russian and U.S. presidents allowed us to do a huge amount of work on a tight schedule and to bring the treaty close to being signed," Timakova quoted the Russian president as saying.
The strategic arms pact stipulates that the number of nuclear warheads is to be reduced to 1,550 on each side, the White House said.
The number of delivery vehicles must not exceed 800 on each side. Under the deal, strategic offensive weapons are to be based solely on the national territories of Russia and the United States.
The signed deal is to be ratified by the parliaments of the two states in order to come into effect.
Russia and the United States have been negotiating a strategic arms reduction pact since the two countries' presidents met in April last year, but the work on the document has dragged on, with U.S. plans for missile defense in Europe a particular sticking point.
The Kremlin said the new treaty will establish the link between missile defense and offensive weapons.
"In a legally binding form, the treaty will introduce a clause on the link between strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons, and the growing importance of this link in strategic arms cuts," the Kremlin press service said in a statement.
However, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the treaty, if ratified, will not prevent the U.S. from "improving and deploying" its missile defense elements in Europe.
The treaty will have a validity term of ten years unless it is superseded by another strategic arms reduction agreement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. and Russia, who possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, have no need to protect their nations with "such large arsenals."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the new treaty will be submitted to parliaments for ratification "immediately after being signed."
Mikhail Margelov, who heads the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the Russian parliament's upper house, said the two presidents requested that the national parliaments ratify the document "simultaneously."
A working group session of Russia's Federation Council and the U.S. Senate to discuss the ratification of the deal will be held on April 19-21 in Washington.
"I hope that at this meeting we will be able to coordinate our ratification schedule," Margelov said.
The Russian senator also said the ratification was unlikely to take place within a month.
MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti)
