The United States is prepared to meet immediately with Russia to finalize a nuclear arms control agreement, the State Department said on Tuesday.

We appreciate the Russian Federation's willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control," spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. 

"The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same."

Russia earlier said on Tuesday it would be ready to freeze its total number of nuclear warheads if the United States did the same in order to extend their New START nuclear agreement by a year.

The New START accord was signed in 2010 and is due to expire in February. It is the last treaty limiting the two countries' strategic nuclear arsenals.

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The United States last week rejected a Russian proposal to unconditionally extend the pact for one year, saying that any such proposal that did not envisage freezing all nuclear warheads was a "non-starter."

But a statement published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday suggested that the two countries' positions had moved closer.

"Russia is proposing to extend New START by one year and is ready together with the United States to make a political commitment to 'freeze' the number of nuclear warheads held by the parties for this period," it said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also said the warhead freeze and one-year extension would be possible if Washington did not make any additional demands. It said the extension would give the two sides time to discuss nuclear arms control in greater depth.

(With input from Reuters)

(Cover: The 9M729 land-based cruise missile on display with its launcher in Kubinka outside Moscow, Russia, January 23, 2019. /AP)