UN (AP) – Linda Thomas-Greenfield takes office as US ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday and a senior Russian diplomat said the red carpet will be rolled out and Moscow is ready to work with the Biden administration , but “it takes two for tango.”
After being sworn in on Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris, Thomas-Greenfield headed to New York, where he is scheduled to present his credentials to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday afternoon.
He will jump straight to his new job and address 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 United Nations Security Council on Monday. And he might even decide to attend a board meeting on Friday.
“We are looking forward to interactions with her,” UN Deputy Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told a group of reporters on Wednesday. “You can count on our most favorable attitudes and positive emotions towards her as a family member of the Security Council.”
Referring to Thomas-Greenfield’s decades as an American diplomat, he said “it’s always easier to interact with professionals.”
But he said America’s view that Russia is “an enemy” and a “threat” has not changed under Biden, so it is very difficult to imagine how interaction with us could change with these starting points. the positions of the new administration. ”
However, Polyansky said: “There are many things that Russia and the United States can do together” and “we will judge the new administration as far as it is concerned.”
“We are in favor of cooperation,” he said. But “it takes two for tango, and we are really ready to dance, but we need a good reliable partner who knows all the movements and respects us” as a country with certain positions “, does not see us as a threat” and sees ” our national interests evident in many matters ”.
Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year-old retired veteran of U.S. foreign service who went on to become deputy 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.
His confirmation on Tuesday was hailed by Democrats and UN advocates who had lamented the U.S. unilateral approach to former President Donald Trump’s international affairs and welcomed the return of President Joe Biden to multilateralism.
At the Senate hearing on his nomination, Thomas-Greenfield called China a “strategic adversary” that threatens the world and called the 2019 speech he praised China’s initiatives a mistake. Africa, but who made no mention of their human rights abuses.
The Senate voted 78-20 to confirm it with Republican opponents saying it was soft on China and would not uphold U.S. principles at the United Nations.
Thomas-Greenfield said at the hearing that Washington will work not only with the Allies, “but to see where we can find a common ground with the Russians and Chinese to put more pressure on Iranians to strictly comply with them again” with the 2015 curb its nuclear program. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and Biden indicated that the United States will rejoin it, although how this can happen remains an important issue.
Polyansky said Russia welcomes the “positive progress” of the Iran nuclear deal and the U.S. agreement to extend the START nuclear deal, adding that Moscow is ready for serious talks and significant “primarily in the area of strategic stability.”
Thomas-Greenfield stressed in the view that the United States will become internationally involved again and promote American values: “support for democracy, respect for universal human rights, and the promotion of peace and security.”
Louis Charbonneau, director of United Nations Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press that Thomas-Greenfield should promote human rights as “a top priority.”
“He should abandon the Trump administration’s selective approach to human rights, enthusiastically condemning the abuses of its enemies while ignoring the rights violations of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“But there is room for continuity in China and Syria,” Charbonneau said. “It should make the expansion of the coalition of nations willing to protest against Beijing’s human rights abuses one of its main goals at the UN, above trying to achieve African, Asian and Latin American states. And it should continue to push to expand humanitarian access to all parts of Syria. ”