UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Linda Thomas-Greenfield will take up her post as US ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday and a senior Russian diplomat has said the red carpet will be rolled out and Moscow is ready to work with the Biden government – but ‘it takes two to tango. ”
After Thomas-Greenfield was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, she was on her way to New York, where she would hand over her credentials to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday afternoon.
She will jump straight into her new post and tackle global peace and security issues with Russia, China and a dozen other countries as the United States takes over the rotating presidency of the powerful UN Security Council on Monday. And she may even decide to attend a board meeting on Friday.
“We look forward to interacting with her,” Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky told a group of reporters on Wednesday. “You can count on our most favorable attitude and positive emotions towards her as a member of our Security Council family.”
He noted Thomas-Greenfield’s decades as a U.S. diplomat, saying, “It’s always easier to deal with professionals.”
But he said America’s view that Russia was an ‘enemy’ and a ‘threat’ had not changed under Biden. It is therefore very difficult to imagine how the interaction with us could change with such points of departure from the positions of the new government. ”
Nevertheless, Polyansky said: “there are many things Russia and the United States can do together” and “we will judge the new government according to what it does.”
“We are in favor of cooperation,” he said. But “it takes two to tango, and we’re really ready to dance, but we need a good and reliable partner who knows all the movements and who respects us” as a country with certain positions, “we do not consider a threat ”and see“ our obvious national interests in many issues. ”
Thomas-Greenfield, a retired 35-year veteran of the U.S. State Department who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, resigned during the Trump administration. She will be the third African-American and the second African-American woman to hold the UN post.
Her confirmation on Tuesday was praised by Democrats and United Nations supporters who lamented former President Donald Trump’s America First ‘unilateral approach to international affairs and welcomed President Joe Biden’s return to multilateralism.
At the Senate hearing on her nomination, Thomas-Greenfield called China a ‘strategic adversary’ that threatens the world, and gave a speech she gave in 2019 praising China’s initiatives in Africa but making no mention of the violation of human rights is not a mistake.
The Senate voted 78-20 to confirm her with Republican opponents, saying she is soft on China and that she will not stand up for American principles at the UN.
Thomas-Greenfield said during the trial that Washington would not only cooperate with allies “but to see where we can find a common ground with the Russians and the Chinese to put more pressure on the Iranians to put them back in strict compliance” to push “with the 2015. agreement to curb their core program. Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018 and Biden has indicated that the US will rejoin it, but how that can happen remains a big question.
Polyansky said Russia welcomed the “” positive developments “on the Iran agreement and the US agreement to extend the START nuclear deal, adding that Moscow is ready for serious and meaningful discussions” first in the area of strategic stability. “
During the trial, Thomas-Greenfield emphasized that the US would act internationally and promote American values - ‘support for democracy, respect for universal human rights and the promotion of peace and security’.
Louis Charbonneau, director of the United Nations for Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press that Thomas-Greenfield should promote human rights as a top priority.
“She must abandon the Trump administration’s selective approach to human rights and enthusiastically condemn the abuse of its enemies while ignoring the violations of the rights of allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“But there is room for continuity across China and Syria,” Charbonneau said. “She must make the expansion of the coalition of countries willing to speak out against Beijing’s human rights abuses one of her main goals at the UN, and try to bring African, Asian and Latin American states into the fold. And she must continue to strive for comprehensive humanitarian access to all parts of Syria. ”