Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he was ready to sign a law on ratification of a new START treaty and urged the United States to continue joint efforts aimed at further strategic arms reduction, RIA Novosti.
Both houses of the Russian parliament have ratified the new arms reduction deal between Russia and the United States, 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 U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on how to exchange the instruments of ratification.
"However, we must not stop at that and continue our efforts in reduction of strategic offensive weapons and limitations in a related area of missile defense," 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 U.S. nuclear arsenals to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.
The U.S. Senate ratified the deal on December 22, 2010, but added several amendments to the resolution on ratification, including a demand to build up U.S. global missile defenses.
Russian lawmakers also added some provisions to the ratification document and issued two supplementary statements to the resolution on ratification of the agreement.
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