John Kerry

More than two-thirds of Ukrainians in the east report that they plan to vote in the May 25 election.

Just as we do not accept Russia's declared need for these so-called peacekeepers in Crimea, we will not accept any unilateral decision to deploy unsanctioned Russian peacekeepers to eastern or southern Ukraine.

That is why the United States and Europe and the international community are working so hard with the Government of Ukraine to help them ensure free and fair elections do take place across Ukraine.

If I had to walk blind into a district in Afghanistan and I could only ask one question to determine how secure it was and how much progress it was making, I would ask, 'What proportion of the girls here are able to go to school?'

Calls on illegal occupations of buildings to end and groups illegally armed to put down your weapons.

If Assad is arrogant enough, and I would say foolish enough, to retaliate to the consequences of his own criminal activity, the United States and our allies have ample ways to make him regret that decision without going to war.

This is not the time for arm chair isolationism. This is not the time to be spectators to slaughter.

He is asking only for the power to make clear, to make certain, that the United States means what we say.

If you are Assad or if you are any one of the other despots in that region, and the United States steps back from this moment... what is the message? The message is that he has been granted impunity.

The world wonders whether the United States of America will consent through silence to standing aside.

If you have nothing to hide, then let the inspectors in today and let it be unrestricted.

The world is watching not just to see what we decide, but it is watching to see how we make this decision.

When someone kills and injures hundreds of children with a weapon the world has banned, we are all responsible.

In the nearly 100 years since the first global commitment against chemical weapons, only two tyrants dared to cross the world's brightest line.

We have a map, physical evidence, showing every geographical point of impact, and that is concrete.

I could not more forcefully state that is just plain and simply wrong.

I repeat here again today that only the most willful desire to avoid reality can assert that this did not occur as described, or that the regime did not do it.

The Assad regime... unleashed an outrageous chemical attack against its own citizens.

This is obviously one of the most important decisions, one of the most important responsibilities of this committee or of any Senator in the course of a career.

We believe the Organization of American States (OAS) must assume a greater role to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Venezuela.

We have consistently expressed, in public and private, that the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms is a required component of any roadmap to a peaceful democratic transition.

We remain deeply concerned by the Cuban Government's repeated use of arbitrary detention, at times with violence, to silence critics.

Our consistency in upholding the principle of territorial integrity is crucial to make it credible.

President Obama is not asking America to go to war.

I will tell you there are some people hoping that the United States Congress does not vote for this very limited request the President has put before you.