MOSCOW. May 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian-U.S. document on strategic offensive weapons reduction that will be ready for signing by the presidents of the two states within a few days is a treaty, not a framework agreement, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
Russia's choice of "pragmatic and advancing dialogue has born its fruit, which resulted in elaboration of a new strategic offensive weapons treaty," the source said. "It will be a legally binding bill that envisages reduction of strategic weapons and that is based on the existing architecture in the nuclear disarmament sphere," he said.
"The U.S. party chose the format of the future document just two or three days ago," the source went on. If they concluded that a treaty was necessary, they are sure that U.S. lawmakers will support it, he said.
In accordance with the future treaty, Russia and the United States will cut their nuclear warheads to 1,700 to 2,200 items on each side. The brackets were chosen at the request of the U.S. party, while the Russian president wanted to fix the number of strategic warheads at 1,500 items on each side, the source said.
According to him, the treaty incorporates a series of achievements of Russian-U.S. agreements in Helsinki and Genoa. It will be based on a new nature of relations between Russia and the United States, and will be the first document in the disarmament sphere prepared for conclusion with the Bush administration, the source said.
Assessing the treaty, the source said the Russian party would like to see a clearer provision concerning "moments of trust, transparency and control" in the document.
The source also said that Russian negotiators had not presented any conditions to the United States during the treaty's elaboration. "There is no need to tie knots around the document, there is a need to reach the most important goal - to sign the treaty," he stressed.