Kyrgyz parliament delegation cuts short trip to St Petersburg, goes home.

ST. PETERSBURG, April 8 (Itar-Tass) -- A delegation of the Kyrgyz
parliament led by Speaker Zainidin Kurmanov cut short its visit to St.
Petersburg, where it attended a session of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary
Assembly, and travelled back home.
The Kyrgyz parliamentarians had tried to discuss the situation in
Kyrgyzstan with their colleagues at home but failed as there was no
connection. The leaders of the delegation then decided to go back home on
Wednesday even though they planned to attend the conference "The Future of
European Security" organised by the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on
Thursday.

.Russia, Poland have good mutual investment potential -- Putin.

SMOLENSK, April 8 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia and Poland have a good
potential for developing mutual investments, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
said at a press conference after talks with his Polish counterpart Donald
Tusk on Wednesday.
"Investment partnership is developing," he said.
Russian business has invested two billion U.S. dollars in the Polish
economy. Polish companies have committed 500 million U.S. dollars to
various projects in Russia. "This is just the beginning. Our potential is
much bigger," he said.
Putin also said that his Polish colleague and he had discussed the
possibility of cooperation in the atomic energy industry and the
construction of networks. "On the whole, we believe that our relations in
this sphere should be depoliticised," he said.
The Russian prime minister stressed that he had informed his Polish
counterpart that the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the
open sea would begin shortly.
He noted that the project would not in any way affect gas cooperation
with Poland because no cuts in gas supplies to Poland and gas transit
through it are planned.
The two prime ministers also discussed ways to simplify travel
requirements for the citizens of the two countries. "We know the position
of the Polish leadership: this procedure should be simplified as much as
possible," Putin said.
They also discussed the organisation of international sporty events,
including the Winter Olympic Games in Russia in 2014 and the UEFA European
Football Championship in Poland in 2012.

.Russian, US presidents to sign new START April 8.

PRAGUE, April 8 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and
U.S. President Barack Obama will meet in Prague on Thursday, to be
followed by the signing of a new strategic arms reduction treaty (START).
The new treaty "marks a transition to a higher level of interaction
between Russia and the United States in the field of disarmament and
non-proliferation," the Kremlin press service told Itar-Tass.
The more than 160-page agreement consists of several documents,
including the treaty proper, a protocol that specifies its articles, sets
the procedure for implementing the treaty, is its inalienable part and has
the same legal force, and supplements to the protocol that further specify
some of the provisions. Some of the supplements are not included in the
set of documents to be signed on Thursday and may be finalised by experts
later.
A special body, Bilateral Consultative Commission, will be set up in
order to ensure the viability and effectiveness of the treaty and resolve
any uncertainties related to or arising out of it.
Treaty provisions envisage that each Party reduces and limits its
strategic offensive armaments in such a way so that in seven years after
the treaty comes into force and later their total numbers do not exceed:
- 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles ((ICBM),
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), and heavy bombers;
- 1,550 warheads for them;
- 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM, SLBM launchers and heavy
bombers. The limit has been fixed upon our initiative in order to bring
deployed and non-deployed launchers, as well as heavy bombers into the
legal space of the Treaty, which will allow to limit the so-called
"returnable potential" and provide a stimulus for the elimination or
reconfiguration of the mentioned strategic offensive armaments.
The Parties agreed to reduce the total number of warheads by a third
against the Moscow Treaty (START ceiling was 2200 warheads) and, what is
more important, more than halve the top limit for strategic delivery
vehicles (START ceiling was 1600 vehicles, while SORT did not limit the
vehicles). Thus, Russia and the United States demonstrated aspiration for
major and truly large-scale cuts in strategic offensive armaments.
"In general it can be stated that the new Treaty is a full-fledged and
balanced document that fully meets the national security interests of the
Russian Federation. It does not create advantages for either of the
parties and, therefore, there are no grounds to claim that someone has won
and someone has lost because of the Treaty. The main result is that
acceptable compromise for both parties has been reached, which will
clearly benefit the bilateral strategic relationship, as well as
international stability and security in general," the presidential press
service said.
-0-zak/


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