John Kerry: “I have said a couple times, during the course of our opening comments and subsequently, what a privilege it is to be…”

“I have said a couple times, during the course of our opening comments and subsequently, what a privilege it is to be working with Senator Lugar on this treaty. I listened to him talk, as I have heard before, about his experiences of traveling over to Russia and going through the process of establishing this extraordinary program. But the country and the world owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his leadership on this issue. His vision, together with Senator Nunn, has made a global difference, and he is properly recognized on a global basis for that. So I thank him for his comments calling every colleague to focus on this linkage of the threat reduction program to the START agreement and to the relationship that comes out of it. I think it is important, as we go forward, to be very clear about the verification components of this treaty. This treaty has fully satisfied our intelligence community and our military community and our stockpile verification folks as to the verifiability of the treaty.”