Russia on Monday warned that recent progress in arms reduction talks by President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart George W Bush must be converted into formal treaties. Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov said that Bush and Putin's proposal at last month's Crawford Summit to cut nuclear weapon stockpiles from 7,000 warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 should be written into a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). “We think it is important to start negotiating with the United States on the strategic arms framework and to agree on the reduction of strategic weapons in the form of a treaty,” Ivanov said at the start of talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Noting the warmth of the personal relations between Putin and Bush, who have met four times this year, Ivanov told Powell, “We hope that talks will achieve a realisation of existing agreements.” “Russia is interested in the agreements being converted into concrete treaties,” the Russian Foreign Minister added. The existing SALT-2 treaty envisages a reduction in the number of warheads to 3,500 by 2007. Meanwhile, Powell hailed the post-September 11 acceleration in closer relations between Washington and Moscow as he prepared to meet Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov and President Vladimir Putin. “I really believe that our relationship has accelerated since the tragic events of September 11. We have come together to combat this terrible scourge of terrorism,” he told reporters as he went into talks with Ivanov. Bureau Report