PRAGUE. March 18 (Interfax-AVN) - State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov has said that Russia may put off the ratification of the Russian-U.S. Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) for a very long period of time if U.S. military action is taken against Iraq.
"In the event of an American strike against Iraq the treaty's future will be put into question in general, because the Americans will be striking against international law and a new period will begin, a period of the law of the jungle, where the strong will trample the weak. And we don't want to be weak, therefore we will still need the missiles, because the Americans are afraid of only one thing - a retaliatory strike," Seleznyov told a Tuesday news conference in Prague, where he is heading the visit of a Duma delegation.
"If the Americans were scared by Iraq - which can raise nothing but a smile - let them know that there is a serious nuclear power that can truly guarantee the security of the entire world community and will not permit being subject to the law of the jungle," the speaker said.
On Tuesday the Duma Council put off the debate on ratifying the SORT from Wednesday to a later time.