"There is no reason why the two largest nuclear-weapon states cannot slash the number of warheads they hold, without diminishing their security or that of their allies," the director general of the UN atomic watchdog told a nuclear disarmament conference in Oslo.

"Russia and the United States have already reduced their stockpiles dramatically, but much more needs to be done," he added.

The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate referred to a December decision by US President George W. Bush to approve a reduction in the deployed US nuclear weapon stockpile, which "will make it less than a quarter of its size at the end of the Cold War."

But ElBaradei underlined the need for further cuts.

"There is considerable scope for further radical reductions of deployed weapons and the elimination of undeployed ones," he stated.

In July, the US and Russia said they had begun talks to trim their nuclear arsenals "to the lowest possible level" ahead of the expiry of a landmark strategic weapons agreement.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which led to the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive weapons under the largest arms control accord in history, expires in 2009.

Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions in May 2002, limiting the two powers to a strategic nuclear arsenal of 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads each. That treaty expires in 2012.

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