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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.
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