Influential US Senator's view on new treaty between Russia and USA on strategic offensive arms

The chairman of the influential Senate foreign affairs committee, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden Jr., called a "very good news" the preparation of the text of a new Russian-US treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms, as well as the intention, stated by US president George Bush on Monday, to sign this document during the Russian-US summit in Moscow. As the RIA Novosti correspondent reports, in a written statement circulated in Washington Biden stressed that the intention of Russia and the USA to reduce their arsenals of warheads to 1,700-2,200 on each side will make the world safer. According to him, he particularly welcomes Bush's decision to submit the new treaty to the Senate for ratification. The Senator stressed that support of such a document in the Senate usually makes for a stable foreign policy because even in case of a change of power in the White House or Senate the obligations assumed in keeping with a treaty seldom change. Biden also said that after the text of the treaty is officially submitted to the Senate it will go to the Senate foreign affairs committee for consideration. The committee will consider it proceeding from such "basic questions" as whether it will strengthen America's security, diminish the danger of nuclear war and withstand a test by time.