US has over 5000 existing nuclear war-heads

London, May 4 (ANI): The size of the United States' nuclear warheads is estimated to be 5113, the Pentagon has disclosed, but according to the Federation of American Scientists an estimated 4,600 have been retired or dismantled.

According to The Telegraph, US and Russia together account for over 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons.

Setting a precedent, the US has decided to reveal the size of its nuclear stockpile in order to persuade other nuclear empowered countries to do the same.

Nuclear non-proliferation has been one of the key objectives of the Obama administration. Washington's move to reveal the size of its nuclear arsenal assumes strategic significance in the backdrop of the forthcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review conference to be held in New York this month.

There are four nuclear states that are non-signatories of the treaty. According to the Natural Resources Defence Council, India has an estimated 250 warheads, Pakistan 100, North Korea 10 and Israel 80, though the last country has never confessed to possessing any weapons.

The Pentagon said 5113 warheads were either operationally deployed, kept in active reserve or held in inactive storage. On a fact sheet detailing numbers that had been classified for decades, it said that the arsenal has been reduced by 84 percent from its maximum level of 31225 warheads at the end of 1967, The Telegraph reports.

"We think it is in our national security interests to be as transparent as we can be about the nuclear programme of the United States. We think it builds confidence, we think it brings more people to an understanding of what President Obama is trying to do," said Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. (ANI)