Rep. Corrine Brown: “As a member of the Duma-U.S. Congressional Study Group, I want to take a moment to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania…”

“As a member of the Duma-U.S. Congressional Study Group, I want to take a moment to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) for his leadership in this area. I traveled with my colleagues to Vienna, Austria, last weekend to help bring cooperation between members of the Russian parliament and the United States Congress. The United States-Russian Duma Study Group was created 5 years ago, and I have been an active participant in the organization for the last 3 years. As a group, our members meet to discuss national security, military affairs, housing, economic development and social welfare policies. The importance of the working group cannot be overstated, since personal relationships by members of each of the respective governments are created, thus permitting for greater openness and increasing trust between the two governing bodies of each country. Because Russia and Serbia have close ethnic and historical ties, I believe that members of the Russian Duma can play an important role in convincing the Serbian government to put a halt to the ethnic cleansing and help stop the refugee crisis. I believe that the humanitarian crisis cannot be solved by just a bombing campaign and that a diplomatic solution is much more desirable than military escalation.”