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Julia Blumberg

Iranian diplomat killed resisting kidnap attempt in Yemen - World News - 0 views

worldnews.nbcnews.com/...isting-kidnap-attempt-in-yemen

shared by Julia Blumberg on 18 Jan 14 - No Cached
    • Julia Blumberg
      Julia Blumberg on 18 Jan 14
       
      "An Iranian diplomat was killed Saturday when he resisted gunmen who were trying to kidnap him near the ambassador's residence, the Iranian Foreign Ministry and Yemeni security sources said."
julia rhodes

Karzai Arranged Secret Contacts With the Taliban - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...contacts-with-the-taliban.html

US history politics crisis policy taliban obama afghanistan karzai

shared by julia rhodes on 04 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been engaged in secret contacts with the Taliban about reaching a peace agreement without the involvement of his American and Western allies, further corroding already strained relations with the United States.
  • The secret contacts appear to help explain a string of actions by Mr. Karzai that seem intended to antagonize his American backers, Western and Afghan officials said.
  • The clandestine contacts with the Taliban have borne little fruit, according to people who have been told about them. But they have helped undermine the remaining confidence between the United States and Mr. Karzai, making the already messy endgame of the Afghan conflict even more volatile.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Mr. Karzai seemed to jump at what he believed was a chance to achieve what the Americans were unwilling or unable to do, and reach a deal to end the conflict — a belief that few in his camp shared.
  • Afghan officials have struggled in recent years to find genuine Taliban representatives, and have flitted among a variety of current and former insurgent leaders, most of whom had only tenuous connections to Mullah Omar and his inner circle, American and Afghan officials have said.
  • . The continued presence of American troops after 2014, not to mention billions of dollars in aid, depended on the president’s signature. But Mr. Karzai repeatedly balked, perplexing Americans and many Afghans alike.
  • But other Afghan and Western officials said that the contacts had fizzled, and that whatever the Taliban may have intended at the outset, they no longer had any intention of negotiating with the Afghan government. They said that top Afghan officials had met with influential Taliban leaders in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in recent weeks, and were told that any prospects of a peace deal were now gone.
  • And it is not clear whether the Taliban ever intended to seriously pursue negotiations, or were simply trying to derail the security agreement by distracting Mr. Karzai and leading him on, as many of the officials said they suspected.
  • The diplomats repeatedly found themselves incurring the wrath of Mr. Karzai, who saw the effort as an attempt to circumvent him; he tried behind the scenes to undercut it.
  • American forces are turning over their combat role to Afghan forces and preparing to leave Afghanistan this year, and the campaigning for the Afghan national election in April has begun. An orderly transition of power in an Afghanistan that can contain the insurgency on its own would be the culmination of everything that the United States has tried to achieve in the country.
  • Mr. Karzai has been increasingly concerned with his legacy, officials say. When discussing the impasse with the Americans, he has repeatedly alluded to his country’s troubled history as a lesson in dealing with foreign powers. He recently likened the security agreement to the Treaty of Gandamak, a one-sided 1879 agreement that ceded frontier lands to the British administration in India and gave it tacit control over Afghan foreign policy. He has publicly assailed American policies as the behavior of a “colonial power,” though diplomats and military officials say he has been more cordial in private.
  • In some respects, Mr. Karzai’s outbursts have been an effort to speak to Afghans who want him to take a hard line against the Americans, including many ethnic Pashtuns, who make up nearly all of the Taliban. With the American-led coalition on its way out and American influence waning, Mr. Karzai is more concerned with bridging the chasms of Afghan domestic politics than with his foreign allies’ interests.
  • Mr. Karzai has insisted that he will not sign the agreement unless the Americans help bring the Taliban to the table for peace talks. Some diplomats worry that making such a demand allows the Taliban to dictate the terms of America’s long-term presence in Afghanistan. Others question Mr. Karzai’s logic: Why would the insurgency agree to talks if doing so would ensure the presence of the foreign troops it is determined to expel?
katyshannon

U.S.-Russia Deal on a Partial Truce in Syria Raises More Doubt Than Optimism - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...fire-in-syria-obama-putin.html

u s deal truce syria doubt optimism new york times politics crisis history culture obama putin assad

shared by katyshannon on 23 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The United States and Russia announced an agreement on Monday for a partial truce in Syria, though the caveats and cautious words on all sides underscored the obstacles in the way of the latest diplomatic effort to end the five-year-old civil war.
  • Under the terms of the agreement, the Syrian government and Syria’s armed opposition are being asked to agree to a “cessation of hostilities,” effective this Saturday. But the truce does not apply to two of the most lethal extremist groups, the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, raising questions about whether it will be any more lasting than previous cease-fires.
  • The agreement calls for the Syrian government and the opposition to indicate by noon on Friday whether they will comply with the cessation of hostilities, a term carefully chosen because it does not require the kind of agreement in a formal cease-fire.
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  • The United States is responsible for bringing the various opposition groups in line while the Russians are supposed to pressure the government. Washington and Moscow also agreed to set up a hotline to monitor compliance by both sides.
  • President Obama sealed the final terms of the arrangement in a phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has become perhaps the most influential player in the Syrian war since Russia thrust itself into the conflict in September on behalf of its client, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
  • The diplomatic efforts did yield a small victory: Aid was delivered for the first time in months to several towns after the combatants gave permission under intense pressure.
  • On the ground in Syria, the prospects for an end to the bloodshed seemed even more elusive. In the last week alone, more than 100 people in Homs and Damascus were killed by suicide bombings by the Islamic State.
  • Airstrikes by the Syrian government and its Russian allies in Aleppo and elsewhere have killed scores of people, including in at least five hospitals, one aided by the international charity Doctors Without Borders.
  • Farther east, scores of civilians were said by locals to have been killed in airstrikes by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
  • The priorities, Mr. Obama told Mr. Putin, were to “alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people,” accelerate a political settlement and keep the focus on the coalition’s battle against the Islamic State.
  • hundreds of thousands of Syrians remain trapped in areas that are classified as besieged or hard to reach, without regular access to food and medicine. Humanitarian groups caution that the more access to aid is used as part of political deals, the less the combatants will provide it unconditionally, as required under international law.
  • The agreement came after one false start: Secretary of State John Kerry announced in Munich on Feb. 12 that the truce would take effect in a week, but the target date passed as the two sides wrestled over how to carry it out. On Sunday, in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Kerry spoke three times by phone with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, to iron out the details.
  • On Monday, while flying back to Washington, Mr. Kerry briefed ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey about the agreement, according to a senior State Department official. He is expected to discuss the truce when he testifies at a budget hearing Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
  • Mr. Kerry has tended to be more optimistic than the White House about the prospects for a diplomatic solution in Syria. But his statement on Monday was also notably reserved. He did not mention the Feb. 27 date and said that while the agreement represented a “moment of promise,” the “fulfillment of that promise depends on actions.”
  • Analysts expressed skepticism about the deal, noting that in the five days before the truce takes effect, the Syrian forces and their Russian allies could inflict a lot more damage to Aleppo through bombing raids. Some speculated that Russia might expand its military campaign to Idlib, southwest of Aleppo, where Nusra fighters are also operating.
  • “This depends entirely on the good faith of Russia, Iran and the Assad regime, none of whom have shown much good faith in the last five years,” said Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who worked on Syria policy during the first term of the Obama administration.
  • In Riyadh on Monday, a Saudi-backed consortium of Syrian opposition groups and political dissidents said they would agree to the terms of the truce. But Riad Hijab, who coordinates the group’s efforts, did not expect the Syrian government, Iran or Russia to abide by it since, he said, Mr. Assad’s survival depended on “the continuation of its campaign of oppression, killing and forced displacement.”
  • For the Obama administration, a partial truce in Syria may simply be a way to keep a lid on the violence there while it turns its attention to planning and carrying out military operations against Islamic State fighters in Libya.
  • Some analysts said the agreement was less an effort to end the fighting in Syria than to ease the bloodshed enough to allow more humanitarian aid to reach stricken cities like Aleppo.
jongardner04

How Serious Is the French Proposal on Middle East Peace? - US News - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...-proposal-on-middle-east-peace

french middle east peace

shared by jongardner04 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • It is still unclear whether the international community will support the French initiative to restart talks on a two-state solution.
  • The ambitious French idea first suggested by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius at the end of January of holding an international conference to kick-start the two-state solution process in Paris in July is alive and kicking. A senior Western diplomat in Jerusalem told Al-Monitor that the initiative to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks has been adopted by the new French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault.
  • The three-step approach — which France proposed at the end of January 2016 and includes consultations with Palestinians and Israelis, a spring preparatory meeting of the international working groups and a July conference in Paris — is definitely on track, the diplomat said.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • It is unclear how strongly the international community will support the French initiative. Washington appears to have washed its hands of the Palestinian conflict, although US Secretary of State John Kerry made a special effort to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Feb. 21 during Kerry's most recent visit to Amman. No details of that meeting have been made public and it is not clear whether the French conference idea was discussed.
  • A major stumbling block to the conference has been the possibility of Israel refusing to attend over the French desire to recognize a Palestinian state if the talks fail, according to the former minister. Speaking to an annual gathering of French diplomats Jan. 29 about what France would do if it faced a wall of Israeli rejection, Fabius said, "Well, … in this case, we need to face our responsibilities by recognizing the Palestinian state."
  • Despite the obvious skepticism due to past failures, an international effort to replicate the Iranian agreement process and solve the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict might work if there is seriousness behind the French effort and if Washington is willing to spend political capital to make it work.
katyshannon

Mali hotel attack: 10 dead in Radisson Blu; attackers still inside, army says - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

mali hotel army cnn crisis death terrorist

shared by katyshannon on 20 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Assailants with guns blazing attacked a hotel hosting diplomats and others in Mali's capital on Friday morning, leaving at least 10 people dead and trapping dozens in the building for hours, officials in the West African nation said
  • Malian and U.N. security forces launched a counterattack at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako and escorted guests out. By late Friday afternoon, no hostages were believed to remain in the building, though attackers still were inside, Malian army Col. Mamadou Coulibaly told reporters.
  • At least 10 bodies have been found in a hall of the hotel, Coulibaly said. At least six people injured in the attack have been hospitalized
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  • The assault began around 7 a.m., when two or three attackers with AK-47 rifles exited at least one vehicle with diplomatic plates and entered the hotel with guns firing, said Olivier Saldago, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali.The attack, Saldago said, came as the hotel hosted diplomatic delegations working on a peace process in the landlocked country, a former French colony that has been battling Islamist extremists with the help of U.N. and French forces.The Radisson chain said that as many as 170 people -- 140 guests and 30 employees -- had been there as the attack began.
maddieireland334

The American Prisoners Just Left Iran. But Kerry Almost Got Them Out Months Ago. - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...hange_569b799fe4b0b4eb759eaa09

US Prisoners Crisis Iran Kerry

shared by maddieireland334 on 17 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • A Swiss plane carrying American citizens, including a Washington Post reporter, who were released from Iranian prison on Saturday departed Tehran early Sunday morning. The prisoners were freed as part of a prisoner release deal -- the result of 14 months of high-stakes secret negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
  • Last July, just before the U.S., Iran and five world powers announced they had reached an agreement on Iran's nuclear program, Kerry had a conversation about the prisoners with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and President Hassan Rouhani's brother, Hossein Fereydoun, in Vienna.
  • Afterward, they went to Zarif's hotel room and spoke again about the prisoners. “We actually shook hands, thinking we had an agreement,” Kerry said. “I thought it was done.”
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  • Zarif and Kerry continued to meet, while Brett McGurk, head of the State Department's counter-Islamic State coalition, ran a separate diplomatic track with different Iranian officials as part of the effort to keep the prisoner negotiations separate from the then-ongoing nuclear talks.
  • Ultimately, the two countries agreed on seven Iranians: three who were serving prison time and four who were awaiting trial. All seven were facing charges related to violations of nuclear sanctions -- which were lifted on Saturday. “So there was a symmetry here,” Kerry said.
  • Kerry credits the nuclear deal with showing that Iran and the U.S., despite having no formal diplomatic ties, can work together to resolve issues peacefully.
  • The deal leaves American citizen Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October, in prison. And it doesn’t provide answers about Robert Levinson, the American CIA contractor who disappeared in 2007.
  • Kerry sees the prisoner deal as a positive precedent for Levinson's and Namazi's cases.
  • Critics of the prisoner agreement, namely Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates, argue that any type of swap or exchange is unjust.
  • According to Kerry, Zarif suggested that there was room for the two countries to work cooperatively on other issues, including in Yemen and Syria, where the U.S. and Iran are effectively fighting on opposite sides of proxy wars.
malonema1

Trump Barely Has Anyone to Talk to North Korea - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...555041

US politics NK

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • There is no U.S. ambassador to South Korea. The U.S. diplomat in charge of negotiations with North Korea recently quit—and no replacement has yet been named. The State Department official in charge of East Asian affairs is a career diplomat who is serving in an acting capacity. So if North Korea does end up talking with the U.S., as the South says it’s offered to, whom exactly would they talk with?
  • But the question remains of whether the U.S. has the bench strength needed to negotiate directly with North Korea—should such talks actually begin. Joseph Yun, the senior-most official who was in semiregular meetings with North Korean officials, announced late last month that he was retiring. His departure underscored the shortage of current U.S. officials who have ever met with a North Korean representative. Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, told me in an interview on Tuesday that it is uncertain “whether or not the United States has the capacity to engage in a major diplomatic effort with the North Koreans.”
  • Wit said the U.S. has been relying too much on analyses of North Korean press reports and intelligence reports, “but the fact is we have almost no experience anymore of face-to-face meetings with the North Koreans, and that’s going to be absolutely essential in conducting any negotiation.”
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  • “It’s a good idea for everybody to keep some perspective, take a deep breath, keep in mind that we’ve have a long history, about 27 years of history, of talking to the North Koreans, and the results over the 27-year history are of them breaking every agreement that they’ve ever made with the United States and with the international community,” that official said. “So, we are open minded, we look forward to hearing more, but ... the North Koreans have also earned our skepticism, so we’re a bit guarded in our optimism.”
runlai_jiang

Trump Agrees to Meet North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...meet-in-north-korea-1520555014

north korea US

shared by runlai_jiang on 29 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • President Donald Trump accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House said Thursday, a meeting that would mark the first time a serving U.S. president has sat down with the leadership of the heavily militarized and diplomatically isolated country.
  • American officials acknowledged that it was unusual for such a face-to-face session to be arranged without an extensive series of preparatory meetings between lower-ranking officials
  • But a failure by Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim to make headway could lead each side to double down on their demands and perhaps heighten the possibility of conflict.
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  • while stressing that the U.S.’s ultimate goal was complete denuclearization by North Korea, subject to stringent verification.
  • The North may define denuclearization as a long-term goal that would only be achieved after the U.S. withdraws troops from South Korea and effectively ends the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.
  • If high-level talks get under way, a key question will be what North Korea and the U.S. mean when they talk about “denuclearization.” The underlying assumption of American policy has long been that it means a North Korea without any nuclear weapons or a nuclear-weapons program.
  • bid
  • “North Korean regimes have repeatedly used talks and empty promises to extract concessions and buy time,” he said. “We’ve got to break this cycle.”
  • “If the talks between the two leaders do not go well, it is not an excuse to justify military action for a situation that has no military solution.”
  • They said Mr. Kim had confirmed that he was prepared to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and agreed to discuss eliminating his nation’s nuclear arsenal. They also said Mr. Kim wouldn’t object to U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers, scheduled to take place next month in the region.
  • In a September appearance at the U.N., Mr. Trump said the U.S. would “totally destroy North Korea” if attacked and vowed that Mr. Kim would not survive the devastations. “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself,” Mr. Trump said.
  • runlai_jiang on 29 Mar 18
     
    It seems like Kim Jong Un uses nuclear power as a diplomatic approach to gain international political compensations and benefits instead of expansionism and insanity.
ecfruchtman

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE Cut Diplomatic Ties With Qatar - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...tic-ties-with-qatar-1496633817

shared by ecfruchtman on 06 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • ecfruchtman on 06 Jun 17
     
    Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates have cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar. Bahrain blamed Qatar's "support for armed terrorist activities" for its decision, according to the Associated Press. (More to...
abbykleman

Justice Dept. debating charges against WikiLeaks members in revelations of diplomatic, CIA materials - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...7-a1b3-faff0034e2de_story.html

shared by abbykleman on 20 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • abbykleman on 20 Apr 17
     
    Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring criminal charges against members of the WikiLeaks organization, taking a second look at a 2010 leak of diplomatic cables and military documents and investigating whether the group bears criminal responsibility for the more recent revelation of sensitive CIA cyber-tools, according to people familiar with the case.
anonymous

Biden assigning Harris to lead diplomatic efforts in Central America to address immigration - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • President Joe Biden is tasking Vice President Kamala Harris with overseeing efforts with Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants to the US southern border, the first major issue Biden has assigned directly to his No. 2.
  • The task mimics Biden's own efforts in 2014 and 2015, when he was asked by then-President Barack Obama to lead diplomatic efforts in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador after a surge of unaccompanied minors from those countries began arriving in the US.Migrants are again arriving at the border at increased levels, causing a scramble by the administration to accommodate them and a political problem for the White House.
  • Officials said Harris would focus her efforts on stemming the current flow of migrants and on developing a larger strategic partnership with Central American countries based on respect and shared values.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The vice president, until now, had not been tasked with a key portfolio issue distinct from Biden. Instead, she acted as a "full partner" to Biden, appearing often physically alongside him on all the administration's efforts, including their self-proclaimed top priority of managing the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Those close to Harris said foreign policy and national security are key areas she wants to develop in her portfolio, and she's taken steps to beef up her experience since taking office, including by speaking with foreign foreign leaders.
  • During her own presidential run, Harris said she would expand the use of deferred action immigration programs and utilize executive actions to remove the threat of deportation of millions of undocumented people in the US if elected president.She said earlier Wednesday in an interview with CBS News that the White House was frustrated by the current situation.
  • Officials said Harris would rely on her experience as attorney general and senator from California, a border state, to inform her diplomatic efforts.
  • They said she would be supported by officials from the Cabinet, including the State Department and USAID, and was likely speak with the leaders of key countries, though did not have specific phone calls to preview.Officials said Biden brought Harris into the new role because of an inherent level of trust.
  • Still, a separate official said Harris would approach the matter differently than Biden, who traveled to Guatemala City in 2015 for a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in part to develop solutions to issue of migrants from those countries coming en masse to the United States.
hannahcarter11

Kamala Harris' team tries to distance her from fraught situation at the border - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Kamala Harris immigration

shared by hannahcarter11 on 01 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • In the weeks since the President asked her to take charge of immigration from Central America, Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff have sought to make one thing clear: She does not manage the southern border.
  • Two White House officials familiar with the dynamic said Harris and her aides have emphasized internally that they want to focus on conditions in Central America that push migrants to the US southern border, as President Joe Biden tasked her to do. A record number of unaccompanied children crossed into the US this spring, and the throngs of desperate minors present a heart-rending problem as well as a political one.
  • After the announcement, Harris' aides appeared to "panic," according to one of the officials, out of concern that her assignment was being mischaracterized and could be politically damaging if she were linked to the border, which at the time was facing a growing number of arrivals.
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  • One of the officials said Harris appears eager for a portfolio that will allow her to achieve political victories, especially in foreign policy, an area where she is far less experienced than Biden.
  • Harris' performance is critical to her future political career, which could well include a run for president. It's also of special concern right now as she prepares to depart for a trip to Guatemala and Mexico next week as part of this project. It will be her first official foray into in-person, in-country talks about the troubles that push Central American migrants toward the US.
  • Harris and her staff have made it clear that they want to focus narrowly on diplomatic efforts in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where they believe they are more likely to achieve tangible results in addressing the root causes of migration, like economic despair, said the officials.
  • "Everything you're doing in Central America is always towards an eye on the border and what's happening in the United States," said Cris Ramon, an immigration consultant. "With the current dynamics in migration, what's happening at the US-Mexico border has implications in the Northern Triangle and vice versa."
  • Tens of thousands migrants from Central America arrive at the US-Mexico border monthly. In April, of the 178,622 migrants encountered by US Customs and Border Protection, 79,190, or roughly 44%, were from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, according to the agency's data, the very countries where Harris is supposed to be addressing migration to the US.
  • The pandemic has taken a dramatic toll on Latin America, where Covid-19 cases and deaths soared and economies once projected to grow have been decimated. The region was also hit with two devastating hurricanes last year.
  • The decline in economic growth in 2020, according to the Congressional Research Service, is expected to worsen income inequality and poverty in the region. That, combined with pent-up demands and the perception of the Biden administration being more lenient, has fueled people trying to cross the US-Mexico border.
  • Harris' role -- which mimics that of Biden under President Barack Obama -- is intended to target what's driving people to the US.
  • But following Biden's announcement, both the President and vice president's staff clarified repeatedly that Harris would be focused solely on diplomatic efforts to stem the current flow of migrants and develop a larger strategic partnership with Central America.
  • Harris has stressed that her role is to address the "root causes" of migration beginning in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico, rather than the "symptoms" of it manifesting at the border, which are being addressed by the Homeland Security secretary. Without a diplomatic push in those countries, "we are just in a perpetual system of only dealing with the symptoms," she said in April.
  • Immigration advocates and regional experts who have participated in roundtables with the vice president describe Harris asking detailed questions on a variety of issues, like agricultural science and water irrigation strategies to tackle food insecurity and infrastructure needs.
  • Internally, Harris has been intimately involved in the crafting of a regional strategy, communicating regularly with National Security Council officials. Cabinet members, along with other administration officials, are also putting together proposals on the administration's root-causes strategy, which Harris is expected to discuss while in Mexico and Guatemala in June, a senior administration official previously told CNN.
rerobinson03

Opinion | Secretary of State Pompeo Leaves No Bridges Unburned - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-pompeo-state-department.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 16 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • While his boss approaches an infamous exit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been busily and noisily scorching the earth behind them.
  • But Mr. Pompeo has not been idle. Over the past week, he unleashed a series of actions whose only real purpose appears to be to make life as difficult as possible for his successor at the State Department. He put Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, he plans to designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, he eased restrictions on contacts between American diplomats and Taiwan officials and he claimed that Iran is a “home base” for Al Qaeda
  • Some of the actions Mr. Pompeo took over the past week might be defensible, were they taken in the context of a coherent foreign policy. But coming days before a change in administration, their sole identifiable purpose is to maliciously plant obstacles — some commentators have called them time bombs or booby traps — before the incoming administration and President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for Mr. Pompeo’s successor at State, Antony Blinken, are in place.
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  • Mr. Pompeo’s effort to leave no bridge unburned might stand him in good stead with primary voters, should he — as has been widely expected — seek higher office in the coming years. But selfishness at the expense of the national interest isn’t the mark of an honorable diplomat or a patriot.That sentiment appears to be shared in Mr. Pompeo’s State Department, where some officials are said to be keeping discreet clocks counting down the minutes until Secretary Pompeo is a private citizen once again.
anniina03

Kim Jong Un calls his relationship with Trump 'special' - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump politics culture

shared by anniina03 on 25 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Kim Jong Un has praised his "special" relationship with US President Donald Trump, with one of North Korea's most respected diplomats telling state media the two leaders maintain "trust in each other."
  • Kim Kye Gwan, a former nuclear negotiator who now serves as an adviser to the North Korean leader, said Kim Jong Un and Trump enjoy "close relations" -- a statement that appeared to pin the future of diplomatic talks between Washington and Pyongyang
  • North Korean diplomats said they broke off those negotiations because of what they described as US intransigence. The State Department disagreed, saying the two sides had a "good discussion."
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  • Unlike his predecessors, Trump has embraced a top-down approach to nuclear negotiations with North Korea in the hopes of solving a problem that has eluded successive US administrations.
anniina03

Pope Francis appoints first woman to senior Vatican diplomatic role - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

culture history

shared by anniina03 on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Pope Francis has appointed a female Italian lawyer to a high-ranking role in the Vatican's diplomatic division, further cementing his credentials as one of the most progressive Holy Fathers in history.
  • Francesca Di Giovanni will serve as the under-secretary in the Section for Relations with States, the arm of the Catholic church that handles the Holy See's political and diplomatic activity, according to a story published in the church's official media Vatican News on Wednesday.
  • The story notes that Di Giovanni is the first woman to hold a position at that level in the Secretariat of State, the department which includes the Section for Relations with States. The Roman Catholic Church currently only permits men to be ordained as priests and much of the Vatican bureaucracy remains male dominated.
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  • "Every step forward for women, is a step forward for humanity as a whole," he said.
anonymous

China senior diplomat says U.S. relations at 'new crossroads' | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...t-new-crossroads-idUSKBN29702U

china us foreignpolicy

shared by anonymous on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • China’s relationship with the United States has reached a “new crossroads” and could get back on the right track following a period of “unprecedented difficulty”, senior diplomat Wang Yi said in official comments published on Saturday.
  • U.S. policies towards China had harmed the interests of both countries and brought huge dangers to the world.
  • The election of Joe Biden as U.S. President has been widely expected to improve relations between Washington and Beijing
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  • President-elect Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, has continued to criticise China for its “abuses” on trade and other issues.
  • We know some people in the United States are apprehensive about China’s rapid development, but the most sustainable leadership is to constantly move forward yourself, rather than block the development of other countries,
Javier E

With Concessions and Deals, China's Leader Tries to Box Out Biden - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-eu-investment-biden.html

china biden europe asia diplomacy agreement trade economic influence

shared by Javier E on 03 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has in recent weeks made deals and pledges that he hopes will position his country as an indispensable global leader, even after its handling of the coronavirus and increased belligerence at home and abroad have damaged its international standing.
  • The image of Mr. Xi joining Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of France and other European leaders in a conference call on Wednesday to seal the deal with the European Union also amounted to a stinging rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate China’s Communist Party state.
  • Noah Barkin, a China expert in Berlin with the Rhodium Group, called the investment agreement in particular “a geopolitical coup for China.” Chinese companies already enjoyed greater access to European markets — a core complaint in Europe — so they won only modest openings in manufacturing and the growing market for renewable energies. The real achievement for China is diplomatic.
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  • China agreed, at least on paper, to loosen many of the restrictions imposed on European companies working in China, open up China to European banks and observe international standards on forced labor. The question is whether the pledges can be enforced.To China’s critics, Mr. Xi’s moves have been tactical — even cynical. Yet they have also proved successful to a degree that seemed impossible only a few months ago, when several European countries became more outspoken in opposing China.
  • China’s vast economic and diplomatic influence, especially at this time of global crisis, means that countries feel they have little choice but to engage with it, regardless of their unease over the character of Mr. Xi’s hard-line rule. The Asian trade pact, for example, while limited in scope, covers more of humanity — 2.2 billion people — than any previous one.
  • A survey by the Pew Research Center in October found that in 14 economically advanced countries, unfavorable attitudes toward China had reached their highest levels in more than a decade. A median of 78 percent of those surveyed said they had little or no confidence that Mr. Xi would do the right thing in world affairs. (One upside for Mr. Xi: 89 percent felt the same way about Mr. Trump.)
  • A breakthrough came after the American presidential election. Mr. Trump showed disdain for America’s traditional allies in Europe and Asia, but Mr. Biden has pledged to galvanize a coalition to confront the economic, diplomatic and military challenges that China poses.China clearly foresaw the potential threat.
  • Only two weeks after the election, China joined the 14 other Asian nations in signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. In early December, after phone calls with Ms. Merkel and Mr. Macron, Mr. Xi pushed to finish the investment agreement with the Europeans.
  • The prospect raised alarm, both in Europe and in the United States. Mr. Biden’s incoming national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, took to Twitter to hint strongly that Europe should first wait for consultations with the new administration — to no avail.
  • Critics said the deal would bind Europe’s economy even more closely with China’s, helping Beijing expand its economic might and deflect external pressure to open up its party-state-driven economy.
  • They said the agreement failed to do enough to address China’s abuses of human rights, including labor rights. The promise that negotiators extracted from China on that issue — to “make continued and sustained efforts” to ratify two international conventions on forced labor — assumes China will act in good faith. China, critics were quick to point out, has not kept all the promises it made when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
anonymous

EU, UK and U.S. to speak with Navalny team after Russia expels diplomats | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...expels-diplomats-idUSKBN2A80YG

navalny russia us uk eu

shared by anonymous on 08 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • The European Union will hold a video call on Monday with allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, joined by envoys from Britain, the United States, Canada and Ukraine, after Russia expelled diplomats from EU states last week
  • “Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe and looking at democratic values as an existential threat,”
  • the West still needs Russia as an energy supplier and as a regional power in diplomacy, such as upholding the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and tackling climate change.
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  • Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Romania and the Czech Republic pushed for fresh sanctions on Russia, with Germany, Italy and France arguing to give Moscow more time to reconsider its jailing of Navalny
  • Borrell’s visit, which included a news conference in which Lavrov called the EU an “unreliable partner”, is likely to have hardened attitudes in Western capitals towards Moscow.
delgadool

'Diplomacy Is Back': Linda Thomas-Greenfield Is Confirmed as Biden's U.N. Envoy - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...assador-thomas-greenfield.html

politics

shared by delgadool on 25 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Ms. Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat, will go the U.N. calling for the United States to re-engage with the global body, while dealing with Republican concerns about her prior remarks on China.
  • “gumbo diplomacy.”
  • Now, with the Senate confirming Ms. Thomas-Greenfield on Tuesday by a vote of 78 to 20, her diplomatic approach will be taken to the United Nations, as she calls for American resurgence in a global body from which the United States retreated during the Trump administration.
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  • From 2008 to 2012, she served as ambassador to Liberia, before moving on to become the director general of the Foreign Service for about a year.
  • Despite the warm response Ms. Thomas-Greenfield’s nomination received from diplomats and former State Department officials, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill showed some concern.
  • an optimistic speech she had given in October 2019 on Africa’s relationship with both China and the United States.
  • The speech conspicuously lacked criticism of China’s human-rights record or pattern of predatory-lending practices in developing countries desperate for investment.
  • “If you look at what I have done prior to that,” she said, “there is no question that I am not at all naïve about what the Chinese are doing and I have called them out on a regular basis,” which included her sharp criticism of China at other points in the hearing.
  • Aside from China, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield will have to more broadly strengthen America’s presence at the United Nations, which was scaled back as the Trump administration pursued an “America First” style of diplomacy that devalued multilateral institutions.
Javier E

UK diplomats fear end of special relationship if Trump re-elected | Foreign policy | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...lationship-if-trump-re-elected

special relationship trump foreign policy uk leadership

shared by Javier E on 08 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • Sir John Sawers, the former head of M16 and a former UK ambassador to the UN, also said Trump’s re-election would be problematic. “There is no doubt President Trump is the most difficult president for us to deal with,” he said.“He does not really feel that sense of being part of that transatlantic community, he does not really believe in alliances. He does not really believe in American leadership in the world. We are seeing in this pandemic for the first time what a crisis is like without American leadership. It is the first time in our lifetime we have experienced that.
  • “If he gets elected for a second time some of the changes we have seen in the past few years will become embedded and entrenched and then, absolutely Britain will not be so much a bridge between the US and Europe. We will need to be bounding closely together with our European partners”
  • n a sign of British diplomats’ despair with Trump, Sir Peter Westmacott, a former ambassador to Washington, said: “I would love to say, as we look to the future, would it not be nice to see political leadership also addressing old-fashioned principles such as accountability, respect for the rule of law, independent judiciary, telling the truth, institutional independence and indeed the importance of a free press?
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  • “That may not be what public opinion is crying out for, but they are not very far removed from the principles that … Biden believes in. Otherwise the chances of the western world retaining any sort of moral leadership and giving itself the right to call out other people when they behave badly will be gone forever.”
  • Many senior former UK ambassadors are desperately hoping Washington will lead again. One said: “I think that if you have a different, more internationally minded leadership in the US then a lot of what has happened over the past few years can be reversed. If we get another four years of this leadership, then some of the bonds and some of the cement that holds the west together, and holds Europe and America together will be broken forever. If things change in November then we can recapture things if we get the right sort of leadership in Europe.”
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