Yeltsin submits START-2 to Russia's lower house

MOSCOW -- Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Monday submitted the 1993 START-2 nuclear arms reduction treaty to the State Duma (lower house of parliament) for ratification, a Kremlin spokeswoman said.

The move came after the opposition-dominated chamber finally agreed last week to consider ratifying the Russian-U.S. treaty after a long mainly politically motivated delay.The Duma's decision gave a boost to Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who generally enjoys the chamber's backing, ahead of his trip to Washington this week. Ratification could help Russia's cause in getting much-needed new foreign loans.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted Yeltsin's spokesman, Dmitry Yakushkin, as saying the president had sent a new version of the ratification law, which includes some conditions put forward by parliament, to simplify the approval process.

One known condition is an immediate start to work on a START-3 treaty allowing further reductions in U.S. and Russian arsenals. Deputies say they may also seek foreign cash before approving START-2 to help finance Russian disarmament.

Yakushkin said the law provided "a possibility to control the implementation of this very treaty as well as other treaties in the field of strategic offensive armaments and anti-ballistic missile systems."

Russia is concerned by recent signals from the United States that Washington wants to alter the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which Moscow sees as a cornerstone of world nuclear deterrence.

START-2 slashes the two countries' Cold War nuclear arsenals by up to two thirds to no more than 3,500 warheads each by 2007.