WASHINGTON, Oct 6, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - US President Donald Trump said Sunday he was prepared to maintain a nuclear arms treaty between Washington and Moscow, after his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin proposed a one-year extension.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Trump said at the White House when a reporter asked for his response to Putin's offer to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, four months before its February 5, 2026 expiration.

New START restricts both countries' deployed offensive nuclear weapons, requiring that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and nuclear warheads remain below the agreed-upon limits.

The treaty, signed in 2010, limits each side to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, and 800 deployed and non-deployed ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers.

It also provides for a mutual verification system.

But such inspections have been suspended since Moscow halted its participation in the treaty two years ago, against a backdrop of the war in Ukraine and growing tensions with the West.

In January, Trump expressed a desire for a negotiated denuclearization with Moscow and Beijing. He has also asked the Pentagon to develop a huge and ambitious US missile defense system known as Golden Dome.