Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US President Barack Obama met Sunday on the sidelines of the APEC meetings and declared to update a strategic arms reduction pact.

US President Barack Obama (L) smiles alongside Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during their bilateral meeting in Singapore November 15, 2009. [Xinhua]

According to local media, both leaders said negotiations over the replacement treaty of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty(START) were making progress, as the 1991 pact was due to run out early next month.

However, they said that there were still technical issues to be sorted out, according to a local source.

Since the 1980s, the United States and Russia (and its predecessor, the Soviet Union) have held rounds of talks and negotiations on strategic disarmament and have signed several treaties.

In July 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, or START I, which barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers. The treaty took effect in December 1994, and was valid for a period of 15 years.

Both leaders also exchanged views on the Iran nuclear program and climate change.