A letter of Bulgarian Ambassador to the USA Elena Poptodorova to Republican Party Senators has been instrumental for the ratification by the US Senate of the new US-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 2), the Bulgarian Embassy in DC told Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency).

Poptodorova's letter underlying the importance of the ratification of the START 2 Treaty was taken into account by the US Senate during the ratification debates at the end of December as it was cited by Senator George Voinovich, a Republican from Ohio, in his Floor Speech to the Senate on December 21, 2010.

After months of heated political arguments in the USA, the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party finally managed to get enough bipartisan support, drawing some Republican Senators to their cause, in order to have the Senate approve the ratification of the START 2 Treaty on December 23, 2010, shortly before the inauguration of the new Senate in January 2011.

"The President signed the treaty in April. It is now December, and we are coming up on 1 full year without any verification regime in place. I believe we should work to get this treaty done because these verification procedures are needed now," Senator Voinovich said, adding,

"I am not the only one who believes this. I recently received a letter from Bulgaria's Ambassador to the United States, Elena Poptodorova. I have known her a long time and worked with her to get Bulgaria into NATO. She wrote:

A failure to swiftly ratify the treaty would mean discontinuation of the verification regime that could result in negative consequences in the nuclear disarmament, especially taking into consideration the significant strategic nuclear advantage of Russia.

In my view, it will also put at risk the future cooperation with Russia and will impede the negotiations on priorities, such as conventional forces and tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. It is of utmost importance that Russia be kept at the negotiating table beyond the scope of the New START Treaty, in particular on issues like Iran, Afghanistan and other global security challenges."

Ambassador Poptodorova's letter was printed in the Record of the US Senate for the debate on the ratification of START 2. Full text of the letter READ HERE

In addition to the letter of the Bulgarian Ambassador, Senator Voinovich also quoted in support of the ratifaction a July 14, 2010, letter to Senators Levin, Kerry, McCain, and Lugar, from former commanders of the Strategic Air Command and US Strategic Command. Senator Voinovich's Senate Floor speech on the New START Treaty can be watched HERE

Ambassador Poptodorova's letter to the US Senate in support of START 2 came in the wake of a collective call by Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov together with his colleagues from Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Norway made during the NATO Summit in Lisbon in November 2010, underscoring the importance of the Treaty and calling upon the US Senators to proceed with its ratification.

On December 23, the Senate sealed the long-anticipated ratification of START 2 with a total of 71 votes in favor and 26 votes against. The Obama Administration had to reach out to some Republican Senators for bipartisan support since the Democrats had only 58 of 100 Senate seats, with a two-thirds majority needed to ratify international treaties.

The new START Treaty was signed in April 2010 by Obama and Medvedev but has been viewed unfavorably by the Republican Party in the US Senate; some Republicans, who made gains in the Senate in the mid-terms in early November have been trying to delay the vote on the Treaty until the new Senate convenes in January 2011 when they would have been more likely to defeat the ratification.

The new Russian-US pact obligates both nations to cap their fielded strategic nuclear weapons to 1 550 warheads, while the number of deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles must not exceed 800 on either side.

The news about the ratification of the treaty by the US Senate has been welcomed with great noted satisfaction by Russia with the lower house of the Russian Parliament, the Duma, voting by a wide margin to ratify START 2 almost immediately after the US Senate vote in favor, on December 25. The upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, also needs to okay START 2 to complete its ratification.

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