MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The ratification of a Russia- U.S. treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons, which is being prepared for signing at the upcoming meeting between Presidents Putin and Bush on May 23-26, will not be automatic, a Russian political expert has said.
"The ratification of the new document will pass more easily than that of START II, which took over seven years of hot and painful debates, but it is unlikely to be automatic," Alexander Pikayev, a top expert on Russian-American relations from the Moscow Carnegie Center, said at an international conference on "The New Agenda of Russian-American Relations" in Moscow on Saturday.
"A number of key legislators have already voiced their intention to start considering the treaty only after it has been approved by the U.S. Senate," Pikayev said.
The draft treaty itself is "a very concise document, its three- page long text being typed with one and a half or even double spacing," he said.
As a comparison, the expert recalled that START I together with all appendixes is several hundred pages long.
The new document consists mostly of a "preamble, which renders general words describing the state of relations between the two countries at the moment."
The body of the document, Pikayev said, expresses the commitment of the parties to have no more than 1,700 to 2,200 combat-ready strategic nuclear warheads by 2012.
At the same time, the document "does not say a word about rules for the registration of the reductions or their schedule and methods, although these issues were the subject of principal disagreements during the talks between Moscow and Washington," Pikayev noted. To agree upon "the issues not stipulated by the treaty, additional negotiations will be needed after the May summit," he said.
At the same time, the way of reduction stipulated by the treaty actually provides the U.S. with the opportunity, if need arises, "to redeploy most of the warheads into launching positions pretty quickly, within several weeks, and thus return to the current level of combat-ready strategic offensive weapons of six thousand warheads," he said.
As "the draft document, unlike START I, does not require that the sides dispose of means of delivery to be reduced, namely ballistic missiles and heavy bombers, this treaty cannot be considered truly that of a disarmament nature," Pikayev said.
In fact, "the new document only envisions the reduction of the level of combat-preparedness of a larger part of the American strategic nuclear arsenal," he said.
On the other hand, "the new treaty itself does not impose additional restrictions on Russia's plans to develop strategic nuclear forces," the expert said.