LONDON, January 27. /TASS/. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) welcomes Washington's offer to Moscow to extend the Russian-US treaty on reduction of strategic offensive weapons, known as New START, and voices its support for the deal, a FCDO spokesperson told TASS on Tuesday.

"We welcome the US offer to extend the New START treaty with Russia. The Treaty has made an important contribution to strategic stability, transparency and building trust. We would support the treaty and its robust verification mechanism continuing," the spokesperson said.

Earlier, FCDO expressed its support to efforts aimed at extending the international agreement.

The Russian and US presidents, Vladimir Putin and Joseph Biden, expressed satisfaction following the exchange of notes on the extension of the New START Treaty, the Kremlin press service said on Tuesday after their telephone conversation. According to the Kremlin, "the sides will finalize, within days, procedures needed to ensure further functioning of this major international mechanism of reciprocal limitation of nuclear missile arsenals."

The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the New START Treaty) was signed in 2010 and entered into force on February 5, 2011. The document stipulates that seven years after its entry into effect each party should have no more than a total of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers, as well as no more than 1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and strategic bombers, and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and strategic bombers. The New START Treaty will remain in force for 10 years, until 2021, unless it is replaced before that date by a subsequent agreement on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. It can also be extended for no longer than 5 years (that is, until 2026) upon the parties’ mutual consent.