NEW YORK, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - A new Russian-U.S. strategic arms reduction treaty is likely to be ready before the current pact expires, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday after talks with his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama.

Medvedev and Obama agreed in July in Moscow on the outline of a deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1), which expires on December 5, including cutting their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.

"The work in this direction is going well," Medvedev said. "The good start we made gives us grounds to hope that our teams will cope with the task and we will receive the new document in time,"

The START 1 treaty obliges Russia and the U.S. to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each.

In 2002, a follow-up agreement on strategic offensive arms reduction was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.

According to a report published by the U.S. State Department in April, as of January 1 Russia had 3,909 nuclear warheads and 814 delivery vehicles, including ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers.

The same report said the United States had 5,576 warheads and 1,198 delivery vehicles.