Peter Visclosky: “I believe that this will be the close of the debate. We just wanted to respond to a couple of the points that were made…”

“I believe that this will be the close of the debate. We just wanted to respond to a couple of the points that were made today. There was a debate here earlier today on the House floor about how far back in time we should go to resolve the issue before us. I would suggest last year, 1995, represents the year in which we adopted the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act which does have an impact on Turkey. There is an existing blockade. We have to go back but one year. There was a suggestion that there is in fact no blockade, that there is suitcase trading going on here. I have people coming into my office today talking about triple trailers doing trade with the country of Mexico and Canada. Here we are talking about suitcase trade. There is also an assertion that there is an airline corridor once a week. My recollection is there was an air corridor to the city of Berlin when the Russians blockaded the city. It would be my assertion that the blockade continues to exist. The comment was made here too that this is simply ethnic politics. I would agree with that assertion. I am very concerned about the ethnic Armenians who have 1 hour of electricity every day because of the Turkish blockade. I am very concerned about the ethnics in north Cyprus because of the continuing Turkish occupation. There was a suggestion here that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense are opposed to this amendment. I will accept their objection.”