Tom Harkin: “I feel strongly about this aspect of going into NATO enlargement. More than anything else, I want to explain the purpose…”

“I feel strongly about this aspect of going into NATO enlargement. More than anything else, I want to explain the purpose of my amendment and lay down a marker regarding an issue that I know concerns all of us here and which could have very severe repercussions in an expanded NATO. That is the issue of the nonproliferation treaty of which the United States is a signatory and, of course, an issue that we have pushed very hard. Many of us have spoken many times about the importance of not slowing down international arms control and nonproliferation efforts. This amendment is simply a sense of the Senate regarding NATO's relationship to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, and urges that the President should propose that NATO examine the compatibility.”