Kremlin Says Will Work With Obama On Disarmament

`The things we have been hearing recently from the new administration have been met with a positive reaction in Moscow`.

Russia takes a positive view of signals from the new U.S. administration that it wants to relaunch ties and Moscow is ready to work with Washington on disarmament, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

"The things we have been hearing recently from the new administration with regard to the development of Russian-American relations have been met with a positive reaction in Moscow," Natalya Timakova, spokeswoman for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters.

"We are ready for the most thorough work with our American partners on the whole agenda of bilateral relations, including on questions of disarmament," she said.

She did not say what particular signals from the White House had pleased the Kremlin, but she may have been referring to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who said last week the United States wanted "to press the reset button" on ties with Moscow.

Under former U.S. President George W. Bush, Russia and the United States clashed over Washington's plans for a missile defence shield in Europe, and over a drive to bring ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine into the NATO military alliance.

New U.S. President Barack Obama has given no details of how he plans to deal with a newly assertive Russia, but he has spoken of the need for a more pragmatic and less ideological foreign policy.

That has prompted speculation about an imminent thaw in diplomatic relations which, under Bush, reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

One of the most important issues on the U.S.-Russian agenda is agreeing on a replacement for the START nuclear arms pact when it expires at the end of this year.

The statement by the Kremlin spokeswoman underlined remarks by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who met Biden last week at a security conference in Munich.

He welcome Biden's comments on re-starting the relationship, saying they showed the United States had a strong desire to change.