MOSCOW. May 13 (Interfax) - A package of documents related to the new strategic arms reduction treaty between Russia and the United States will be submitted to the State Duma for ratification soon, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced.
"We'll submit the necessary package of documents to the State Duma in the near future," Lavrov told the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, on Thursday.
"The president demanded that ratification of the treaty proceed synchronously with American colleagues. We will abide by this directive," Lavrov said.
Lavrov also said that Russia is working to get "the American side finalize ratification of the intergovernmental agreements on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy" as soon as possible. This work is yielding results, he said.
U.S. President Barack Obama again submitted to Congress recently the treaty, signed with Russia in 2008, "which will of course strengthen the legal foundation of our interaction in this important sphere," he said.
Lavrov highly appraised the current talks on a new basic pact with the European Union. "We agreed from the start that the treaty would be legally binding. Many of its provisions have been negotiated, although certain issues have yet to be settled," he said.
Russia is also weighing the possibility of forming one more international legal instrument with the European Union that would regulate "crisis management," peacekeeping efforts and other areas.
Russian and American presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama signed the treaty on measures to further cut and limit strategic offensive weapons in Prague on April 8.