Geneva - The United States and Russia began Monday their second round of talks on a follow-up to an expiring cold-war era nuclear arms reduction treaty.

"The delegations have begun talks today at 11 o'clock," said an official at the Russian mission to Geneva, where the meeting was taking place.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, reaches its end in December, and the two nuclear powers have agreed to work to hammer out a new deal.

This round, coming on the heels of the first session held last month in Moscow, was expected to go for three days.

Russian officials have said they want the talks to extend beyond nuclear weapons and include a deal for the US to scrap its controversial missile defence shield plans for eastern Europe, which Moscow opposes.

Few details are expected to be released after talks conclude in Geneva this week.

US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev are to meet in Moscow on July 6, though it was still up in the air if the talks would have made enough progress for them to disclose anything at that time.

The new American administration has been pushing to "reset" its relations with Moscow. The two capitals saw relations grow colder under the White House of George W. Bush.

The START talks have been hailed by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who said as the first round began that there was a "new momentum for disarmament."

The Conference on Disarmament, hosted by the international organization, last week announced it had a breakthrough and produced its first work plan in 12 years.

The conference, established in 1979 on the foundations of similar forums, is the only multilateral arena for negotiations on arms reduction.

The 65-nation forum will take its first steps on Thursday towards implementing the work plan, which includes establishing groups for negotiations on banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and reducing the global warhead count.

All declared and suspected nuclear powers are members of the conference. (dpa)