The new Russian-U.S. START treaty will be submitted to the Russian parliament for ratification in approximately three weeks, a top Russian senator said on Friday.
The new START treaty, signed on April 8 in Prague, replaces the 1991 pact that expired in December. The deal is expected to bring Moscow and Washington to a new level of cooperation in the field of nuclear disarmament and arms control.
"We [Russia] are also beginning work on the new START treaty ratification and the document will be submitted with the parliament in approximately three weeks," said Mikhail Margelov, who heads the Russian upper house's international relations committee.
The United States has already submitted the document for ratification with the Senate, and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed this with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday.
Margelov added that he would meet with U.S. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense James Miller in the upper house of the Russian parliament on May 27 to discuss the ratification of the document.
He added that his committee would hold an extended session on June 21 concerning the simultaneous ratification of the new agreement by Russia and the United States.
The U.S. and Russian presidents earlier agreed that the two sides' ratification processes should be concurrent.
Experts believe that U.S. ratification could be delayed by Republican lawmakers who want to press the administration to commit to modernizing the U.S. nuclear forces while the reductions are underway.
The new treaty on strategic arms cuts stipulates that the number of nuclear warheads be reduced to 1,550 on each side over seven years, while the number of delivery vehicles, both deployed and non-deployed, must not exceed 800.
The pact must be approved by both houses of the Russian parliament and by the U.S. Senate to come into force.
MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti)
