MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. The international affairs committee has recommended that the State Duma adopt in the first reading a bill on the withdrawal of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the committee’s chairman Leonid Slutsky has said.

"The committee on international affairs has unanimously recommended adopting in the first reading the draft law on cancelling the CTBT’s ratification, which will be considered by the State Duma on October 17," the committee's press service quotes Slutsky as saying.

The bill to withdraw Russia's ratification of the CTBT was submitted to the State Duma on October 13. It was co-authored by virtually all members of the lower house.

The bill suggests canceling article 1 of the law on the ratification of the CTBT, which contains a provision on ratifying the treaty that Russia signed in New York on September 24, 1996.

The legislators also suggest the title of the federal law On the Ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty be changed to On the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club that Russia could revoke the ratification of the CTBT since the United States had not ratified the document. It was up to the State Duma to make a decision, Putin said. As State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin noted, the decision to revoke the ratification agreed with Russia's national interests and "will be a proportionate response to the United States, which has not ratified the treaty to this day.".