Russia says U.S. to respect its arms treaty concerns

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia expects to receive within days U.S. proposals taking into account Moscow's concerns regarding a new strategic weapons deal negotiated by the two nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

Russian and U.S. negotiators have been working hard to produce a detailed treaty ready for signing by the two nations' leaders in December, when an existing pact known as START-1 regulating the number of long-range nuclear weapons expires.

"The most important of these principles for us is the inter-connection between strategic offensive and defensive weapons, linked to a U.S. program of creating strategic weapons with non-nuclear charges," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying on board a plane heading from India to Russia.

"On both issues, as we understand, the Americans heard our concerns, are ready to take them into account and promised that within days they would hand over their own proposals, addressing these problems."

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Jon Hemming)