John Kerry: “I want to thank the distinguished Senator from New York for a most important and articulate historical analysis and…”

“I want to thank the distinguished Senator from New York for a most important and articulate historical analysis and, frankly, a practical analysis of the impact that this amendment would have on our relationships with a number of different countries. I could not agree with him more, that to come in with an arbitrary cutoff point on the basis of a whole number of votes which have no true relationship to the real relationship of our country and those people who voted is not the way to make judgments about military education training, which is in fact the very kind of training that they want to have go to countries which need that kind of assistance and help, who might not be 100 percent with us. So in a sense the policy is truly cutting off our noses to spite our faces and can have dramatic negative consequences with respect to countries that are enormously important to us in very delicate relationships, for instance, Cyprus.”