"We welcome the bilateral intention to reduce strategic offensive weaponry to the minimal possible level, announced in the Sochi declaration on the Russian-U.S. strategic relationship on 6 April 2008, and to continue the drafting of a legally binding accord, which would replace the START expiring on 5 December 2009," said a joint statement on global security and strategic stability issued by the CSTO, Xinhua reported.

The foreign ministers "are convinced that reaching the above-mentioned agreement would ensure stability and predictability in strategic relations between the major nuclear countries, and build confidence in headway towards complete elimination of nuclear weapons in the world," the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

START, a treaty took effect in 1994, bars its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 strategic delivery vehicles.

The CSTO, a post-Soviet security alliance, comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.