No Russia-U.S. arms deal yet: sources

By Michael Stott

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian negotiators have still not reached agreement on cutting stocks of their deadliest nuclear weapons ahead of President Barack Obama's first visit to Moscow on Monday, sources close to the talks said.

Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev are expected to announce next week an outline deal on reducing the numbers of strategic nuclear missiles as the centerpiece of the U.S. president's visit.

The two leaders would sign a framework agreement and then instruct negotiators to produce a detailed treaty ready for signing by December, when an existing pact known as START-1 regulating the number of long-range nuclear weapons expires.

But Moscow has still not indicated what figure it will settle for, the sources said.

"The reason you haven't seen any firm figures about cuts is that the negotiations are still going on," one senior source close to the process said.

"We are unlikely to know before Monday what the Russians will agree to and we may only find out when Obama gets to the Kremlin." Obama is due to meet Medvedev for talks at the Kremlin on Monday afternoon.

U.S. officials are still confident of securing an outline arms deal, as well as Moscow's assent for convoys of lethal U.S. military equipment bound for Afghanistan to cross Russian territory, but any agreements may yet be torpedoed by the bitterly fought issue of missile defense.

Washington plans to station anti-missile batteries and radar detection systems in the Czech Republic and Poland as part of a global system to spot and shoot down hostile enemy rockets before they reach the U.S.