Washington ? Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts said lawmakers should resolve the Trent Lott controversy before a scheduled meeting to decide the Republican leader’s fate.

Like many Republicans, Roberts did not say Tuesday whether Lott should go. But he went further than many GOP colleagues, saying “this situation should be and very well may be resolved” before a Jan. 6 meeting called to decide whether Lott should stay on as majority leader.

“This matter has gone beyond the statement of a single individual to one of national importance and, unfortunately, divisiveness and turmoil,” Roberts said in remarks he wrote for an appearance Tuesday before the Wichita Chamber of Commerce. His staff released the remarks afterward.

Lott is under fire for praising the 1948 segregationist presidential candidacy of Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. At Thurmond’s 100th birthday party earlier this month, Lott said his home state of Mississippi voted for Thurmond, “and if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.”

Roberts said the words were “understandably interpreted by many as being racist and supporting segregation” and President Bush had set the right tone in saying Lott’s remarks don’t reflect “the spirit of our country.”