Medvedev ready to sign law on ratification of START

January 27th, 2011 - 8:30 pm ICT by IANS  

Barack Obama Davos (Switzerland), Jan 27 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he is ready to sign a law on the ratification of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and urged the US to continue joint efforts aimed at further reducing strategic arms.Both houses of the Russian parliament have ratified the new arms reduction deal between Russia and the US, paving the way for the president to sign the ratification into a law.

“When I come back from Davos, the text of the ratified treaty will be put on my table,” Medvedev said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

The president added that he had already agreed with his US counterpart Barack Obama on how to exchange the instruments for ratification.

“However, we must not stop at that and we must continue our efforts in the reduction of strategic offensive weapons and limitations in the related area of missile defence,” Medvedev said.

The new arms reduction pact, replacing START 1, which expired in December 2009, was signed by Medvedev and Obama in Prague in April, 2010. The document slashes the Russian and US nuclear arsenals to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.

The US Senate ratified the deal Dec 22, 2010, but added several amendments to the resolution on ratification, including a demand to build up US global missile defences.

Russian lawmakers also added some provisions to the ratification document and issued two supplementary statements to the resolution on ratification of the agreement.

–IANS/RIA Novosti
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