KYIV. Dec 9 (Interfax-AVN) - A team of U.S. nuclear disarmament inspectors will start working in Ukraine on Monday, the press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry told Interfax- Military News Agency.
The inspection is taking place in the framework of the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I). It will last until Friday, the press service said.
The inspectors' goal is to check the state of affairs at the Pavlograd mechanical plant that is scrapping the remains of strategic missiles that were stationed in Ukraine.
The START I treaty was signed by the USSR and the United States on July 31, 1991. The United States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine signed the START Protocol at a ceremony in Portugal on May 23, 1992. Under the protocol, Ukraine being a successor assumed USSR obligations under START I and agreed to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear- weapon state.
The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine ratified the START I treaty and Lisbon Protocol on November 23, 1993. It passed an act on joining the NPT treaty in November 1994, paving the way for exchanging ratification notes and coming into force of the START I treaty. The ratification notes were exchanged on December 5, 1994.