John Kerry: “I want to thank the Senator from Arizona, my long-time friend, for his very generous comments. I appreciate them…”

“I want to thank the Senator from Arizona, my long-time friend, for his very generous comments. I appreciate them personally. But also I thank him for his willingness, under some circumstances that I know were tough for him, in terms of how a lot of this played out. He nevertheless sat with me, worked through these issues, and obviously I wish we had been able to reach an agreement sometime earlier, but I am glad he is there now on this amendment. I am glad we are able to accept it. I thank Senator Corker who has been a straight dealer throughout all of this--no histrionics, no politics. I think he has really seen his responsibilities on the Foreign Relations Committee in the best way and has studied and thought and worked at and tried to find a way to solve a problem, not create a problem. So I thank him for that approach to this treaty. I think this amendment, if I can say--I mean, I was here in the Senate. I remember debating the first proposal of President Reagan with respect to missile defense, which then was called the SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and became what we called Star Wars back then. We have traveled a long distance since then. The world also has changed significantly since then.”