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US President Barack Obama vowed on Monday to pursue further nuclear arms cuts with Russia, saying the United States has more warheads than necessary, and issued stern warnings to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Iran in their nuclear standoffs with the West. Speaking ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Obama held out the prospect of new reductions in the US arsenal as he sought to rally world leaders for additional concrete steps against the threat of nuclear terrorism. He pledged a new arms-control push with incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin when they meet in May. But any further reductions would face stiff election-year opposition from Republicans in Congress who already accuse him of weakening America's nuclear deterrent. Obama laid out his latest strategy against the backdrop of continued nuclear defiance from the DPRK and Iran, twin challenges that have clouded his overall nuclear agenda and the summit in Seoul. He set expectations high in a 2009 speech in Prague when he declared it was time to seek "a world without nuclear weapons". He acknowledged at the time it was a long-term goal, but his high-flown oratory helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, Obama said that even after new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed between the United States and Russia in 2010, the United States will still have more than 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons, and some 5,000 warheads. | 
