The Russian government has studied the new Russian-U.S. strategic arms reduction treaty and recommended that the Russian president submit it to parliament for ratification.
The new arms 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.
The treaty 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.
Earlier on Thursday, head of the Russian parliamentary international relations committee Mikhail Margelov said other nuclear states could accede to the new Russian-U.S. strategic arms treaty.
He added, however, that Russian and U.S. nuclear capabilities were incomparable with those in other countries, some of which regard nuclear weapons as "a last resort."
U.S. President Barack Obama told his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on May 13 the United States had already submitted the document for ratification to the Senate.
On May 26, Obama called on the Senate Republicans at a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill to cooperate in the soonest possible ratification of the strategic arms reduction deal with Russia
MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti)
