European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has "warmly congratulated" the United States and Russia on concluding negotiations on the post-START treaty.
 
According to media reports, the new pact will require both sides to cut their deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and launchers. It will also re-establish a verification mechanism to replace the one that expired with START last December.
 
"By reducing substantially the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery system, by establishing a strong verification mechanism and setting the stage for further reductions, this treaty represent a remarkable progress in the fulfilment of the disarmament obligations of the parties," Ashton said on March 27 2010.
 
The agreement, Ashton said, enhances the security of the contracting parties and of the international community as a whole.
 
"The conclusion of this treaty will send a strong positive signal to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Review Conference scheduled to take place in May in New York and will contribute to accelerate the global disarmament efforts," Ashton said.
 
Congratulating Russian and US presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on the agreement and for the leadership they have displayed, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced hope in a statement that "this new treaty can be ratified without delay so as to allow its expeditious implementation."
 
Ban called on both nations to press ahead with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons, encouraging other nuclear-weapon states to follow their example.
 
Similarly to Ashton, also expressed optimism that the March 27 announcement will give "significant impetus" to this May's review conference of the United Nations-backed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which forms the foundation of the world's nuclear non-proliferation regime and marked the 40th anniversary of its entry into force earlier this month.
 
Parties to that pact will meet in in May to review its operation and how to further its full implementation and its universality. Under the provisions of the treaty, review conferences are held every five years.

Ban has characterised the last review meeting in 2005 as "disappointing," the UN News Service reported.
 
At the end of that meeting, Sergio Duarte, the president of the last Review Conference and currently UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said the gathering ended having accomplished "very little" amid widely diverging views on nuclear arms and their spread. It wrapped up without any substantive agreement having been reached by nations.
 
In 2008, Ban put forward a five-point action plan to reinvigorate the international push towards disarmament.
 
It begins with a call for the parties to the NPT to pursue negotiations on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification.
 
In addition, it is based on the key principles that disarmament must enhance security, be reliably verified, be rooted in legal obligations, be visible to the public and must anticipate emerging dangers from other weapons.

Speaking at a security forum in Brussels on March 27, Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the new treaty could be a spark for additional co-operation between Russia and Nato countries, the Voice of America said.