US President Barack Obama said the United States and Russia should lead the way in preventing nuclear proliferation by restarting negotiations to cut their atomic arsenals.

"I think it''s important for the United States and Russia to lead the way on this," Obama told his first news conference.

He added that he has told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "it is important for us to restart the conversations about how we can start reducing our nuclear arsenals."

With such a push, he said, "we then have the standing to go to other countries and start stitching back together the non-proliferation treaties that, frankly, have been weakened over the last several years."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told her Senate confirmation hearing on January 13 that the new administration would renegotiate the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expiring December 31.

Clinton said the new administration "will have a very strong commitment to START treaty negotiations" which made little progress under George W. Bush''s outgoing team.

State Department negotiators said there was no breakthrough in talks in Moscow in December for a follow-on agreement to replace START-1.