Discussions on US missile defences and Russia's interest in cutting nuclear arsenals are underway in Washington.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov are in preliminary talks ahead of a three-day summit beginning on November 13th between President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The summit could be the last chance for Russia and the United States to reach a deal on strategic missiles and missile defence before the United States starts carrying out tests that coul deventually lead tot eh scrapping of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.
Controversy over the ABM treaty, which Russia wants to preserve, dogged bilateral relations for the first eight months of Mr Bush's presidency but the attacks on the United States on September 11th have led to a new spirit of co-operation between Moscow and Washington.
The Washington Postsaid today the summit would probably lead to a deal allowing extensive testing to develop a missile defence system while also setting a target of cutting strategic nuclear warhead levels by about two thirds.
It said the agreement would not scrap the ABM treaty, which US officials say remains the ultimate goal of negotiations with Russia, but would allow Washington to start a testing and development program next year.
They would set goals for slowly reducing the number of strategic warheads to between 1,750 and 2,250 each, the newspaper said.
This would be lower not only than the 3,000 to 3,500 warhead levels set under the START II treaty, but also the proposed ceiling for a START III pact that was reached by Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in 1997.
A State Department official said an agreement would clearly include a substantial reduction in offensive nuclear forces but that no decisions have been made on the numerical range.