The new strategic arms reduction pact signed by Russia and the United States in Prague is to be submitted to the countries' parliaments in May, a top Russian senator said Wednesday.
"We received signals from the White House and Kremlin that the treaty will be submitted to national parliaments in the first half of May," Mikhail Margelov, who heads the Russian upper house's international committee, told Russian journalists in Washington during a break in a bilateral parliamentary commission's session.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama signed the new arms cuts deal on April 8. The new treaty replaced START 1, the cornerstone of a post-Cold War arms control setup, that expired December 5, 2009.
The two countries, which possess about 90% of global arsenals of nuclear weapons, agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side and the number of deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles to 800 on each side.
Moscow insists that the two countries' parliaments simultaneously ratify the treaty.
"The treaty should be submitted in time and in its fullness, that is, with all its supplements and additions," Margelov said.
"Then it will be thoroughly studied by the two parliaments," he said.
WASHINGTON, April 21 (RIA Novosti)
