Politico reports:
President Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday that he’ll push the Senate in coming weeks to ratify a nuclear arms treaty the two leaders signed earlier this year.
“I reiterated my commitment to get the START treaty done during the lame duck session,” Obama said after meeting with Medvedev. “And I’ve communicated to Congress that it is a top priority.”
But the treaty, which Obama and Medvedev signed in April in Prague, has run into Republican opposition. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the minority whip, is leading a bloc of GOP senators who are withholding their support in exchange for concessions from Obama on modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Obama needs Republican support for the two-thirds Senate vote necessary to ratify the treaty, which would reduce the United States and Russia’s nuclear arsenals by about one-third
If Obama can’t get the treaty through the lame duck session, ratification would be left to a new Senate with fewer Democrats and more Republicans likely to oppose the treaty.
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