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International News Title: Several U.S. Senate Republicans Signal Support for Russian Nuclear Treaty Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Several Senate Republicans signaled a willingness to support a new arms control treaty with Russia by the end of the year, even as their party vowed to block nearly all business in the chamber. “I’m open to it,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said in an interview yesterday. “The administration has made some important steps in the right direction” toward resolving Republican concerns, he said. Republican leaders have stalled consideration of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, vowing to block passage of all bills until Congress takes up legislation extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and passes a stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government operating until appropriations measures for fiscal year 2011 are enacted. Yesterday, some Republicans indicated that they would be open to supporting the agreement once those matters are resolved. “It’s a two-step process: We do taxes and then we do START,” said Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senate approval of a resolution supporting ratification of the accord would award a significant victory to President Barack Obama, who considers the treaty the top foreign policy priority of his administration for this congressional session. One-Third Reduction The START agreement, signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April, would cut each country’s deployed nuclear warheads by about a third, to a maximum of 1,550, and would allow both nations to resume on-site inspections. The previous treaty expired in December 2009. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, has pushed the administration for assurances, including funding, that the White House is committed to modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure even as it cuts the arsenal. Several Republicans indicated this week that talks were progressing. “The administration has evolved in a really positive way as it pertains to modernization,” Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said in an interview. Robert Bennett of Utah, who is retiring at the end of the year, said he wanted to see what “wrangling” over the ratification resolution produced before saying how he would vote. Still, he described himself as “generally disposed to” approve ratification of the treaty. ‘Move Forward’ “I believe we can move forward with the START treaty and satisfy Senator Kyl’s concerns and mine about missile defense and others,” Senator John McCain of Arizona said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program. Two-thirds of the senators present and voting are needed to approve ratification. If all 100 senators are in the chamber, nine Republicans would have to join with Democrats to reach 67 votes. Three Republicans supported the treaty in a Sept. 16 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So far, only Lugar has said he would definitely support the treaty in the full Senate. Ratification of each of the last three arms-reduction treaties was approved with more than 90 votes. Democrats suggested yesterday that the treaty’s chances for ratification in the next month were improving. “The START treaty will be done by Christmas,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on CBS’s “Early Show.” Colin Powell’s Support Obama urged passage of the treaty yesterday in remarks after meeting with Colin Powell, a former secretary of State under President George W. Bush and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss the pact. “Now it’s time to get this done,” the president said. “It is important for us to make sure we complete the evaluation process, we finish the debate and we go ahead and finish this up before the end of the year.” In recent weeks, the White House has brought in officials from previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, to endorse the pact. Last month, Obama met at the White House with James Baker, President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of State; Henry Kissinger, secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; and Madeleine Albright, President Bill Clinton’s secretary of State. ‘Compelling Reasons’ In an opinion article in today’s Washington Post, Powell, Baker, Kissinger and two other secretaries of State in Republican administrations -- George P. Schultz, who served under President Ronald Reagan, and Lawrence Eagleburger, who also worked for President George H.W. Bush -- wrote there are “compelling reasons” for their party to approve ratification. At the White House yesterday, Obama and Powell said that a failure to ratify the treaty would hold up new verification procedures for the U.S. and Russia to monitor each other’s nuclear arsenals. Russia plans to build up its nuclear forces if the U.S. fails to ratify the treaty, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live” yesterday. He said through a translator that if Russia’s proposals are “met with negative answers only,” and if “additional threats” are built near Russia’s borders, “Russia will have to ensure her own security through different means.” The U.S. and Russia must “agree on a joint effort,” he said. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Democrats were eager to approve ratification. “There’s a very vocal group of senators who believe this needs to be taken up now,” Kerry told reporters Nov. 30. “What we need to do is carve out space to get it done even as we do some of the other business.”
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