Kerry delays vote on new START treaty

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, postponed a vote on a strategic arms treaty with Russia
until mid-September.

{mosads}Kerry had scheduled a committee vote on the arms treaty with Russia
for Wednesday but decided to postpone it citing senators’ requests for
more time to review the treaty as well as background documents from the
executive branch and intelligence community.

The treaty — referred to as New START, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — is one of Obama’s major
foreign policy initiatives. Two-thirds of the Senate is needed to
ratify the treaty, but Republicans have been reluctant to support it. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the senior Republican on
the Foreign Relations panel, is the only GOP member to voice support
for the treaty. 

“In consultation with Senator Lugar, I chose to reschedule the vote to be
responsive to the concerns of our members so that we can build bipartisan
consensus around a treaty that our military leaders all agree will make America
safer,” Kerry said in a statement Tuesday. 

“I strongly believe that timely ratification of this treaty
is vital to America’s security. It will
strengthen our relationship with Russia and enhance the global
non-proliferation regime, furthering our efforts to deal with serious potential
threats from Iran, North Korea and loose nuclear materials,” he said. “And it will restore
much needed visibility into Russia’s nuclear arsenal, which has been
diminishing every day since the original START Treaty and its
verification provisions expired in December.”

Pushing the panel’s vote to September may give the Obama
administration more time to convince skeptical Republicans, but it
would also propel a high-profile issue into intense midterm election
territory. Some treaty supporters fear the partisan bickering just
a few months before Nov. 2 could hurt the administration’s chances of
winning over the necessary Republican votes to ratify the treaty.

—This story was updated at 4:38 p.m.