Obama to propose deep nuclear arms cuts: Report

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama will use his State of the Union address on Tuesday to call for dramatic cuts in nuclear arsenals around the world, The New York Times has reported.

Quoting unnamed administration officials, the newspaper said late Sunday that in recent months Mr Obama had secured agreement with the US military that its nuclear force can be cut by roughly a third.

In his speech, Mr Obama is unlikely to discuss specific numbers but White House officials are looking at a cut that would take the arsenal of deployed weapons to just above 1,000, the report said.

Currently, the United States has about 1,700 nuclear weapons, and the new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that passed the Senate at the end of 2009 calls for a limit of roughly 1,550 by 2018.