A Russian presidential aide on Friday highlighted...

Moscow and Washington announced last week that a new strategic arms control treaty, reducing nuclear warheads to 1,550 and delivery vehicles to 800 on each side, would be signed in Prague on April 8.

Sergei Prikhodko said the new pact will address the return capability of missile launch facilities and heavy bombers, which would lay the legal groundwork for the subsequent elimination of some types of delivery vehicles.

He added that the new treaty would contain guarantees that strategic submarines and heavy bombers armed with conventional weapons would not be modified to carry nuclear weapons. Russia has been concerned that the United States could circumvent the arms cuts by returning mothballed delivery vehicles to combat use if it wanted to.

He said the new pact would establish a simplified verification mechanism, which would almost halve verification costs. Russia has in the past bridled at some of the more intrusive elements of the START 1 treaty, which expired

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