Britain's offer to scale back its nuclear deterrent does not include proposals to cut back on warheads, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.
Mr Brown will tell the United Nations that he is prepared to consider cutting the UK's fleet of Trident missile-carrying submarines from four to three as part of a multilateral "global bargain" to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons.
But he made clear that he was making no proposals on further reductions in the UK's stockpile of Trident warheads, which has already been cut from 200 to 160 under Labour.
And he dismissed suggestions that his initiative was motivated by the need to save money and reduce the Government's deficit, saying: "Obviously there are cost implications in every decision, but that is not what is uppermost in our mind."
Mr Brown's offer comes as US President Barack Obama is pressing ahead with ambitious plans for international talks in Washington next March to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stockpiles.
In his address to the UN General Assembly in New York, Mr Brown will call for all nations to come together to achieve the long-term ambition of a nuclear-free world.
"If we are serious about the ambition of a nuclear-free world we will need statesmanship, not brinkmanship," he will say, according to an advance extract from his speech. He will then spell out the details of his offer on Tuesday at a special session of the UN Security Council, summoned by Mr Obama, on disarmament and non-proliferation.
It will cover the planned £20 billion Trident modernisation programme - with the four existing submarines being replaced by just three boats.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live ahead of his speech, Mr Brown said: "We face a race for nuclear weapons if we do not act now. We face a far less safe world with a number of states considering taking on nuclear weapons and equally the danger that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist groups. That's why I am proposing today a new global bargain on nuclear weapons between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states."
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Asked by interviewer Simon Mayo if he was offering to scrap more of Britain's warheads, Mr Brown replied: "We are looking at the moment at the number of submarines and will continue to look at that in detail. We are making no proposals at the moment about warheads."
