The White House said Tuesday it had no current plans to sign a landmark nuclear arms reduction pact with Russia in Copenhagen, or anywhere else this week, following reports a deal was near.

"We are not planning currently for a signing ceremony in Copenhagen," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"We are not planning to visit any nearby countries on that trip," he said, though added that he hoped the two sides would continue to make progress in talks in Geneva on a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

"I don't know if it gets done this week."

Earlier, amid reports from Russia suggesting a deal could be signed in Copenhagen on Friday, when Obama attends the UN climate summit, the State Department said a deal seemed to be "getting very close."

"All I can tell you is the teams remain hard at work. They have made progress," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters when asked if a new treaty is imminent.

"I think we think we are getting very close to an agreement," he added.

"Our goal is to get this done by the end of the year," the assistant secretary of state for public affairs said.

In Geneva, a Russian diplomatic source told AFP on Monday that the current round of START talks will carry on until Friday.

The remarks follow media reports predicting that Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev would sign the successor to the 1991 START treaty, which expired on December 5, in a European capital this week.

The new agreement that the delegations have been drawing up for more than six months is due to take over from START 1.

Medvedev and Obama in July set a goal of slashing the number of warheads on either side to between 1,500 and 1,675 and the number of "carriers" capable of delivering them to between 500 and 1,100.

earlier related report
Australia, Japan PMs back call to slash nuclear arsenals
Tokyo (AFP) Dec 15, 2009 - The centre-left prime ministers of Japan and Australia voiced their support Tuesday for a report calling for a cut of more than 90 percent in the world's nuclear arsenals.

The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) called for the global stockpile of atomic arms to be cut to 2,000 from 23,000 -- 22,000 of them held by the United States and Russia -- by 2025.

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd travelled to Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart, Yukio Hatoyama, for the launch of the report, which was commissioned by both their governments.

"A guidebook that will lead the world to peace is now complete, and this is really wonderful," Hatoyama said of the report.

Rudd called it "an important framework for discussions and debate on non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament in what will be a critical year in 2010."

The report was written by a 15-member panel headed by former Australian and Japanese foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi ahead of a global meeting next May to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The 1970 treaty, reviewed every five years, has been severely strained, the panel's report said.

The last review conference in 2005 was an "unrelieved disaster" with backsliding on disarmament commitments by key players such as the United States' then president George W. Bush, it added.

At the same time, nuclear states India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have not ratified the non-proliferation treaty, the report said.

"Maintaining the status quo is not an option," said Evans. "Nuclear weapons are the most inhumane weapons ever conceived... they outweigh any conceivable security benefits."

Evans said the United States and other nuclear powers should drop their "dual standards" of wanting to keep their own nuclear arsenals while pushing for non-proliferation elsewhere.

"That is simply not a sustainable nor a credible position," he said.

Nearly half of all global warheads are operationally deployed, and the US and Russia have over 2,000 weapons that are on "dangerously high alert," ready to be launched within four to eight minutes, the report said.

The US has an arsenal of around 9,000 weapons and Russia 13,000, it said. China, which does not make public its arsenal, is estimated to have up to 240 warheads, while India and Pakistan each have about 60 to 70, it said.

Israel, the only undeclared nuclear power, has between 60 and 200 nuclear weapons, according to the report, which said that Iran is believed to have a weapon-making capability.

Communist North Korea was the newest member joining the nuclear club, having conducted a nuclear test for the first time in 2006 followed by a second one in May this year.

US President Barack Obama this year outlined his vision of a nuclear-free world and agreed with former Cold War enemy Russia to discuss a new accord on cutting their nuclear arsenals.

Washington and Moscow are working on signing the successor pact to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and are likely to announce a deal by the end of this month, Evans said.

Rudd was in Japan on his way to the climate talks in Copenhagen.

The ICNND has among its members former US defence secretary William Perry, ex-Norwegian premier Gro Harlem Brundtland, and representatives from China, Russia, India, France, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Its extensive advisory council includes former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, as well as the United Nations' former top weapons inspector Hans Blix.