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Untitled Document Daily Press Briefing, on the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (excerpted) Richard Boucher Department of State March 19, 2003
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Question: The lower house of the Russian State Duma has deferred action on the weapons reduction agreement with the U.S., which was unanimously or at least -- 95, I think, to zero by the Senate. Just yesterday Secretary Powell cited the mutual interest the two countries have in reducing weapons as an example of how differences with Russia over Iraq will be eventually overcome by what they had in common. Has anybody made that point to Moscow? And what is your -- what is the State Department's view of what's going on in the Duma?
Mr. Boucher: I think the point has been made to Moscow that we remain interested in ratification of the treaty. In fact, the U.S. Senate has given its consent to ratification of the Moscow Treaty. The treaty was signed May 24th and the Senate has now given its advice and consent. We continue to believe the treaty is in the interests of both the United States and Russia. We look forward to the Russian Duma and the Federation Council's consent to ratification at the earliest opportunity. And we continue to hope that President Bush and Putin will be able to exchange instruments of ratification shortly after this ratification so the that the treaty can enter into force. So we continue to look for this treaty. We continue to hope the Duma and the Federation Council will ratify it and we continue to discuss with the Russian Government how to bring that about.
But really, I would have to say all along in this, Secretary Powell and Foreign Minister Ivanov have repeated compared notes on how things were going, but each one was in charge of his own parliamentary procedures and so we will see what the Russian Government does to get ratification of this treaty that we signed with them.
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