The Russian legislature plans to resume its consideration of the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty soon, senior Russian lawmakers said yesterday (see GSN, April 4).

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on lawmakers over the weekend to approve the treaty, despite the “unfavorable background” created by the U.S.-led war in Iraq.  Senior Russian legislators said yesterday that they would resume their treaty deliberations this spring, saying the pact corresponds with Russia’s national interests.

“Ratification must not be dragged out,” despite the war, said retired Gen. Andrei Nikolayev, head of the defense affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.  Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian Parliament, agreed that the treaty must be ratified “as quickly as possible.”

Some Russian lawmakers, however, appear to link the treaty’s ratification prospects with Russia’s potential involvement in the reconstruction of Iraq once the war is over, according to the Associated Press.

The Duma will take up ratification “as soon as the situation regarding the post-conflict settlement in Iraq is normalized,” said Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Duma’s international affairs committee (Associated Press/Russia Journal, April 8).

For further information, see:

U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty Text (U.S. State Department)

Bush Announces Moscow Treaty

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Moscow Treaty

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