Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US President Barack Obama.

On the heels of President Barack Obama’s controversial success in passing the healthcare reform bill, the US and Russia have reached the final stages of signing a key nuclear arms treaty that will slash their nuclear weapons to record low levels, reported The New York Times.

While details of the pact have not been revealed, officials have indicated that both sides will have to reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 from the 2,200 currently allowed and cut the currently permitted 1,600 launchers by half, reported The Guardian. The number of nuclear-armed missiles and heavy bombers will also be limited to 700 each.

Washington and Moscow officials have also said that the agreement is expected to be signed in the Czech capital of Prague in early April, once the dates of the signing have been worked out, the UK Press Association reported.

The historic treaty, which will replace the 1991 Start treaty which expired in December, has been seen as a positive step by most of the media as a sign of restored cooperation between the two countries that have suffered  strained relations in recent years. An article in The Guardian today described the pact as a “big achievement for Obama and his attempts to reset relations with Russia”. In its report today, the UKPA termed the treaty as “sealing an increased level of trust and co-operation between the US and Russia, two countries which possess the vast majority of the world’s nuclear arms and have laboured under strained relations in recent years.”

According to The Times, the pact will be “Obama’s first significant foreign policy achievement” and “would also boost American efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions — a subject on which Moscow seems to be closer to backing the US”.

While a majority of the media has welcomed the treaty, a leading Moscow-based defense expert, Yevgeny Myasnikov, cited in The Guardian, said that the treaty lacked “substance” as it was expected to include a clause under which the reductions could be reversed, allowing both sides to reassemble nuclear warheads in an emergency.