US National Security Adviser James Jones travels to Moscow this week for talks aimed at forging a new US-Russian agreement on limiting their nuclear arsenals, the White House said Tuesday.

Jones, a retired US general, was to meet with senior Russian officials for talks on an arms agreement that would succeed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which expires on December 5.

His travels to Moscow from October 28 to 29 come at the invitation of Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russia's national security council.

The White House said Jones also will meet this week with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other senior Russian officials.

Russia and the United States hope to reach agreement by December on a legally binding strategic arms agreement to take the place of START, which was signed in 1991 just before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Russian and US negotiators began talks in Geneva last week, the first major step warming bilateral relations.

At a Moscow summit in July, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Medvedev and Obama agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in Russian and US strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years.

The two leaders also agreed to cut the number of ballistic missile carriers to between 500 and 1,100.