GENERAL LEV ROKHLIN BELIEVES THAT START-2 TREATY IN ITS PRESENT FORM IS DISADVANTAGEOUS FOR RUSSIA

MOSCOW, JANUARY 29 (RIA NOVOSTI's correspondent Valery Asriyan) - The START-2 Treaty in its present form is not advantageous for Russia, believes chairman of the State Duma committee on defence, general Lev Rokhlin. In an interview with RIA Novosti on this score he said that under this treaty Russia has to destroy its strategic missile forces and ICBMs in their composition. "The treaty is drawn up in such a form that, first of all, we must destroy ICBMs and blow up silos and then again build ICBMs and silos to raise the number of admissible warheads to the level stipulated by the treaty," explained Rokhlin. According to him, all this will require $50 billion. Rokhlin also said that under the treaty Russia is deprived of the right to use the war heads removed from missiles while the USA can in this way restore its nuclear potential. "The START-2 Treaty can be ratified if START-3 Treaty is prepared, which would reduce the level of the admissible number of war heads to 1,700 or 1,500," believes the general. He added that even better would be not the ratification of START-2 Treaty but the conclusion of START-3 Treaty which would seal the right of Russia to determine itself "which nuclear weapons it needs to reduce."

Rokhlin said that the work in the State Duma on considering START-2 Treaty was suspended due to the fact that the lower house has failed to receive for already a month an answer from the President and the Government, how the potential expansion of NATO to the East and the placement of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of the countries - new members of the North Atlantic Treaty will influence the START-2 Treaty. "We expect from the Government a concept for the development of Russia's means of nuclear containment and an economic substantiation study for the implementation of the concept of building nuclear containment means, and also an economic forecast for the development of the country for a period of 2000-2010," said general Rokhlin.