December 5, 2010 12:53 p.m. EST
CNN.com
Washington (CNN) -- Facing the ticking time bomb of the Senate's lame-duck calendar, the New START arms control agreement now looks closer to being voted on before the end of the year.
"We're counting votes but we're not counting chickens," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "We are encouraged that public comments by various senators on both sides of the aisle appear to leave open a strong possibility that this will come to a vote."
On the Senate floor, Democrat John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was trying to strike an optimistic tone, praising some Republicans for negotiating "in good faith."
"It's my hope that these conversations that we're having and the process that is in place is going to produce, hopefully, a positive outcome and we're certainly going to work in good faith to try to make that happen in the next days, hours," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said there was still a ways to go.
"Did I feel any movement on START? The the answer is yes. I feel that, but as far as being able to hear anything, that we have things worked out on it, the answer is no at this stage," Reid told reporters Wednesday.
Five big guns of Republican foreign policy, meanwhile, including former secretaries of state who support Senate ratification, urged their fellow Republicans, in a Washington Post editorial, to support the treaty which they say is "is clearly in our national interest."
Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Colin L. Powell said the agreement opens "a valuable window into Russia's nuclear arsenal," preserves the United States' ability to deploy effective missile defenses and provides enough money for modernization of the infrastructure essential to maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Read the entire article
"We're counting votes but we're not counting chickens," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "We are encouraged that public comments by various senators on both sides of the aisle appear to leave open a strong possibility that this will come to a vote."
On the Senate floor, Democrat John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was trying to strike an optimistic tone, praising some Republicans for negotiating "in good faith."
"It's my hope that these conversations that we're having and the process that is in place is going to produce, hopefully, a positive outcome and we're certainly going to work in good faith to try to make that happen in the next days, hours," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said there was still a ways to go.
"Did I feel any movement on START? The the answer is yes. I feel that, but as far as being able to hear anything, that we have things worked out on it, the answer is no at this stage," Reid told reporters Wednesday.
Five big guns of Republican foreign policy, meanwhile, including former secretaries of state who support Senate ratification, urged their fellow Republicans, in a Washington Post editorial, to support the treaty which they say is "is clearly in our national interest."
Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Colin L. Powell said the agreement opens "a valuable window into Russia's nuclear arsenal," preserves the United States' ability to deploy effective missile defenses and provides enough money for modernization of the infrastructure essential to maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Read the entire article
No comments:
Post a Comment