Political Quotes

“I take this time on the floor as the Chair of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. The Helsinki Commission is the operating arm of the U.S. participation in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE. It has been in the press recently because of the circumstances in Ukraine, which is what I am going to talk about. First, I will remind my colleagues that the United States, along with all the countries of Europe and Canada, formed the commission on security and cooperation in Europe in 1975. It was founded on the principle that in order to have a stable country, you need to deal not just with the direct security needs--the military needs--of a country and not just with its economic and environmental agenda, but you also need to deal with its human rights and its good governance, and all three of these are related. Commitments were made by all the signatories to the OSCE about respecting the jurisdictions of the member states and dealing with the rights of your neighbors and dealing with the rights of your own citizens. The Soviet Union was a member of the OSCE, and now all of the countries of the former Soviet Union are members, including Russia and the countries of central Asia. I am increasingly alarmed at the deterioration of the situation in Eastern UKraine, particularly in the Donetsk region, where Moscow- controlled pro-Russian separatists have seized 19 buildings and 14 cities and towns.…”