- Статьи
- World
- We got up and left: the United States staged a demarche against France at the UN Security Council
We got up and left: the United States staged a demarche against France at the UN Security Council
A diplomatic row broke out between Washington and Paris. American diplomats left a meeting of the UN Security Council during a speech by their French counterpart. Prior to this, the Permanent Mission of the Fifth Republic to the United Nations in Geneva stated that the United States could no longer be considered a "beacon of human rights." Relations between the allies are already experiencing a systemic crisis. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
They didn't listen
The American delegation, led by Deputy U.S. Representative to the United Nations Dan Negrea, left the hall of the UN Security Council when French Permanent Representative Jerome Bonnafon took the floor at a meeting on Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.
"I would like to point out that there is one member of the Council here who feigns righteous anger and tries to lecture others on any topic <...> whether it's the [Ukrainian] conflict that we're discussing today, or topics unrelated to peace and security like human rights. That is why we came out at the time of France's speech," the American diplomat later explained.
He added that the United States has always stood shoulder to shoulder with France when its "freedom was under threat," and endured French posturing "out of a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect," but now the end has come.
Such steps were a response to a statement by the French mission to the United Nations in Geneva, which considered that the United States could no longer be perceived as a "beacon of human rights."
"Today they [the United States] stand next to North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali and Russia, isolated. And the world is no longer listening to them," French diplomats wrote, commenting on the results of the UN vote on the re—election of High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk for a second term.
The US representative to the UN, Mike Waltz, in turn, accused Paris of "pandering to some of the worst human rights violators."
The vote on extending Volker Turk's term of office until October 2030 was held on July 25 at the UN General Assembly. 144 countries voted in favor, including the states of the European Union, 13 abstained (among them Belarus, Korea and New Zealand), 10 countries (including Russia, USA, Israel, Argentina) did not support the candidacy of the Turk.
Not for the benefit of the UN
According to Dmitry Chumakov, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, Moscow regrets the extension of the Turku's mandate, as it sees no future for the world organization in this step.
"This is not good for the future of the United Nations," the diplomat explained. At the same time, he stressed that the High Commissioner is known for his unfounded accusations against Russia and has never backed up his words with any evidence.
"Mr. Turk does not show zeal when it comes to such politically inconvenient subjects as the attacks on the college in Starobilsk, the tragedy in Bucha, <...> the oppression of canonical Orthodoxy. <...> As the President [of the Russian Federation Vladimir] said Putin, the UN structures have become blind and deaf to such violations," Chumakov added.
Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, also noted earlier that one should not count on the reaction of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to crimes committed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the terrorist attack in Starobilsk, Luhansk People's Republic. Moscow has repeatedly called for international investigations into such incidents, but has received no response.
The administration of US President Donald Trump considers Turkey insufficiently neutral towards Israel. Jeff Bartos, the U.S. Representative for Governance and UN Reform, said that Turk's re-election would have consequences and promised to review the organization's participation and funding.
The demarche of the American delegation to the Security Council during France's speech was the culmination of a protracted conflict between the allies. The parties have accumulated a lot of contradictions. One of them is the tension over the future of European security. French President Emmanuel Macron has taken a leading role in strengthening European military power and the "nuclear umbrella." France, as one of the two nuclear powers in Europe, seeks to reduce its dependence on the United States for defense.
This process is taking place against the background of growing doubts about Washington's reliability as a partner. Questions are raised not only by possible changes in the deployment of American troops in Europe, but also by Trump's statements about Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, a member of NATO. The US president's desire to gain control of the island is perceived in the region as an attempt on the territorial integrity of an ally and undermines confidence in American guarantees.
Another stumbling block was the conflict between the United States and Iran. Trump is unhappy that European partners have not provided assistance to Washington. Trade contradictions between states remain an acute issue.
Thwart Trump
The friction between the United States and France, which partly speaks on behalf of the EU, shows that a number of contradictions have accumulated between the parties on Middle Eastern issues. Firstly, this is the war between the United States and Israel against Iran, Pavel Timofeev, head of the Regional Problems and Conflicts Sector at the IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with Izvestia.
He stressed that although France has taken a position of moderate condemnation of this war, at the same time condemning Iran for its "wrong" state system, the French president is most annoyed by Trump's inability to reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic and ensure the stable operation of the Strait of Hormuz.
"As part of this war, a separate issue is the security of Lebanon, where Israel is fighting, and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, on whose territory Iran is attacking, responding to the bombing of the United States," the political scientist said, adding that in general, France is "trying to patronize both Lebanon and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf," seeking to gain a foothold through they are in the region. Because of this, Paris' political and economic interests in the region do not always coincide with those of the United States.
Secondly, the expert expressed the opinion that this is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Last year, Macron made a historic decision to recognize Palestine, followed by France and a number of European countries. In fact, this decision was made to stop Israel's fighting in Gaza, as well as to promote the EU's role as a mediator between Israel and Palestine, which challenges Trump's plans to support Israel and resolve the situation in the Gaza Strip.
— In addition to the purely Middle Eastern issues, there are other disagreements between the US and the EU: this is Trump's "trade war" against the EU, China, Ukraine, etc. These disagreements are not critical and hardly call into question Washington's allied relations with Brussels and Paris," the source said.
In his opinion, wherever France can express its position, show an alternative to Trump's course, and remind about the interests of the EU in different regions of the world, it does so.
— Neoliberal Macron, in fact, has nothing to lose: his mandate will end in May 2027, so where there is an opportunity to show conservative Trump incompetent, he is likely to do so, — concluded the political scientist.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
