#10
Duma committee favors ratification of SOR Treaty

MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) - The Duma Defense Committee has advised the lower house to ratify the Russian-American Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SOR), its chairman, Gen. Andrei Nikolayev, told Interfax on Thursday.

"The Duma committee, after considering the bill on ratification of the SOR Treaty submitted by the president, has recognized that the provisions of the bill are an effective legal foundation guaranteeing the necessary coordination of efforts of Russian federal government bodies to implement the treaty," Nikolayev said.

The bill "creates additional conditions for guaranteeing the regular notification of the Federal Assembly in the framework of established control procedures about the implementation of the treaty by the United States," he said.

Nikolayev said his committee advised the Duma to ratify the treaty.

The Duma International Affairs Committee responsible for the ratification was invited to submit the bill to the Duma after receiving a financial and economic study and an explanatory note to it.

The two accompanying documents are missing today even though they were required to be submitted under Duma regulations, the Defense Committee said.

It also invited the International Affairs Committee to hold joint parliamentary hearings on the bill, and suggested drafting two Duma resolutions on its attitude to questions of strategic offensive reductions and additional measures to coordinate the efforts of Russian government bodies in such reductions and on guarantees for maintaining the combat readiness and advancement of Russian strategic nuclear forces under conditions of strategic offensive reductions. The Defense Committee believes the two draft resolutions should be submitted to the lower house for consideration together with the bill.

Nikolayev said Russia needs the treaty. "It permits Russia to build its strategic nuclear forces the way it finds necessary until the year 2012. It also allows [Russia] to keep the START-1 verification system until January 1, 2009. This means we will know what is going on in the U.S. nuclear sector until January 1, 2009," he said.

"The treaty should have been ratified in a stable situation. The need to ratify it in the current unstable situation is even greater," Nikolayev said.

BACK TO THE TOP    #248 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE