President Barack Obama and his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev today agreed to honour their commitment under the 1991 US-Soviet START nuclear arms control pact expiring at midnight tonight, even as Moscow and Washington were still negotiating hard for its replacement.

'Recognizing our mutual determination to support strategic stability between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, we express our commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to work together in the spirit of the START Treaty following its expiration,' Obama and Medvedev said.

Meanwhile, US and Russian diplomats are negotiating hard to reach a deal for a successor treaty.

In a joint statement, the text of which was released by the Kremlin, the two leaders also underlined their 'firm intention to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enter into force at the earliest possible date.'

At their maiden meeting in London in April and July summit in Moscow Obama and Medvedev had agreed to complete the negotiations of the new treaty to replace START-1 by its expiry on 5th December.#