"The president-elect and his team spoke about the future of strategic arms control during the election campaign," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in the interview with VIP-Premier magazine.

"We hope very much that signals will appear in the direction of controlled cuts in strategic offensive arms, and moreover in the crafting of a legally binding agreement, a new treaty to replace START I."

The Cold War-era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed between the US and the Soviet Union expires in December 2009, and Washington and Moscow have been seeking to thrash out terms of a new accord.

The 1991 treaty limits the number of missiles and warheads that each side may have and is a cornerstone of Cold War strategic arms control.

Ryabkov is due to participate in US-Russian talks in Moscow next week that will focus on a successor to START as well as the controversial US missile defence system that Washington plans to build in Eastern Europe.