John Sarbanes: “You have to look at what these votes are. Morocco, on important votes, was 54.5 percent; on overall votes, it was 21…”

“You have to look at what these votes are. Morocco, on important votes, was 54.5 percent; on overall votes, it was 21 percent. Cyprus was 22 percent on overall votes; on important votes, it was 58 percent. So there is a big gap between where they are on the important votes and where they are on the overall votes. Second, many of these plenary issues are not important matters to us. Of course, if a country abstains or is absent, that counts against them. This is not a way to do business, and the consequence of doing business this way, if we pass this amendment, would be to exacerbate our relationship with some very important countries, who have been very helpful and cooperative to the United States in trying to reach our objectives.”