Members of the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, should thoroughly study the text of a new U.S.-Russian arms reduction deal before ratifying the document, a senior lawmaker said.
The United States Senate ratified on Wednesday the new START treaty with Russia, with a vote of 71 for and 26 against. The agreement will come into force after ratification by both houses of the Russian parliament.
"We are ready to ratify the treaty, but we must first take time to study the precise wording of the copy approved by U.S. senators," Andrei Klimov, deputy head of State Duma's committee on foreign affairs said Wednesday.
Klimov said there was no need to rush the ratification and suggested that the lower house should start discussions on the treaty in January.
"We do not face a political urgency to do it [ratify the treaty] in 24 hours," he said, referring to the situation in the U.S. Senate prior to ratification.
The Senate ratified the new arms pact after 18 hearings and seven days of debate, answering more than 1,000 questions in line with the document. The White House and State Department spent several months in heavy debates with Republican lawmakers to pass the bill.
The Republicans were attempting to put the final vote off until the beginning of 2011 when the number of Republicans in the Senate would significantly increase, giving them more muscle.
The ratification of the treaty signifies a major political victory for the Obama administration.
The new START treaty, which restricts both nations to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200, was signed by Russian and U.S. presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in April.
MOSCOW, December 23 (RIA Novosti)
