The Obama administration will submit a new nuclear reduction treaty with Russia to the US Senate this spring and hopes to have it ratified by the end of the year, a senior US official said Monday, dpa reported.
Ellen Tauscher, the undersecretary of state for arms control, told reporters that the State Department will work closely with the Senate to win ratification of the new Stategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START.
"Our goal is to submit the treaty in the late spring and to seek ratification by the end of the year," Tauscher said.
The Russian government must also get the approval of the Duma.
Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev announced on Friday that a new deal had been reached, calling on both sides to reduce their nuclear warheads to 1,550, or about one-third below current levels.
The agreement came after more than a year of tedious negotiations that resulted in missing the December deadline to wrap up a new pact to replace the first START agreement signed in 1991.