The administration has been in intense negotiations with Republican lawmakers over the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which slashes US and Russian nuclear arsenals.

"I reiterated my commitment to get the START treaty done during the lame duck session and that I have communicated to Congress that it is a top priority," Obama told reporters after the meeting.

Obama met Medvedev on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit in Japan on the last day of his journey through Asia.

The new Congress takes office in January, with Republicans set to take control of the House of Representatives and to add members to the Senate after making huge gains in recent elections.

The next two months are therefore known as a "lame duck" session, potentially slowing progress on pushing the deal forward amid fears Republicans will stall to press for more concessions.

The START treaty, which was negotiated earlier this year to replace a similar treaty which expired at the end of December, faces stiff opposition in the US as many feel it could hamper national missile defence plans.

The White House says ratifying the treaty is a vital national security priority, and failure to move on it would harm the "reset" in relations between Russia and the US engineered by the Obama administration.

Moscow on Friday said it hoped the outcome of the US mid-term elections would not affect ties with Washington.

Under the US constitution, treaties need the approval of two-thirds of the Senate, meaning Obama's Democratic allies will need to pick up considerable Republican support.

The treaty -- signed by Medvedev and Obama at an elaborate ceremony in Prague in April -- restricts each nation to a maximum of 1,550 deployed warheads, a cut of about 30 percent from a limit set in 2002.

But a growing number of Republicans have voiced opposition, saying it would impede the US ability to set up missile defences against future potential threats such as Iran.

Obama added that he thanked Medvedev for his cooperation on Afghanistan and talked about a range of international issues including Sudan.

"On a range of international issues and hotspots from Sudan to the Middle East, we think that Russia has been a excellent partner," Obama said.

He also said he was "very pleased" with the "strong" Medvedev statement last week condemning a brutal attack on a leading reporter for the Kommersant newspaper.

Medvedev noted that "Of late, we have seriously moved forward the question of Russia WTO accession" in terms of Russia's 17-year bid to join the World Trade Organisation.

The country's accession process was held up by the United States in August 2008 after Russia's brief war with Georgia, but it was revived with the thaw in US-Russian relations under the Obama administration and talks this year.

White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said one of Obama's final acts on his Asian tour would be to chair a meeting about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an original grouping of four countries which five others are now in talks to join.

The United States is among nations in talks to join the partnership. Obama told a CEO summit on sidelines of the the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on Saturday that it was an emblem of future US trade policy.

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