[ad_1]
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield
United States Representative to the United Nations
new york, new york
April 24, 2023
at the time of delivery
question: First, Linda Thomas Greenfield, US Ambassador to the United Nations. Ambassador, thank you very much for your time. I’m honoured to be able to meet you. You were with Sergey Lavrov today and I would like to know your reaction in that room and what it was like to be in the same room with him.
Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield: The Russian Foreign Minister’s chairmanship of the Security Council on Multilateralism is the epitome of irony and hypocrisy. Multilateralism when Russia took unilateral and provocative actions against Ukraine attacked everything the United Nations Charter stands for and everything we hold dear as members of the United Nations. So I put up a charter. And I read part of the charter to remind him what the charter meant. And he was really out of place today because all the members of the Council spoke of their support for the Charter.
question: Do you have any sense of that? And obviously he’s been Foreign Secretary for many years, right? Do you think he’s all in? Is there a part of him that understands that?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: I can’t speak for him. But I hope he got something out of hearing a member of the council today. And what he got was to support the values underpinning the UN Charter and criticize Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, from the Secretary-General to nearly every member of the Security Council.
question: So I mentioned that police officer, right? Seven years in prison for criticizing the war in a private phone call. They tapped his phone. Of course you know the father of the girl who painted the Ukrainian flag at school, right? he’s in jail She is in an orphanage. right? And there are more and more of these examples.
Some Americans are currently being held in Russian penal colonies and prisons. Elizabeth Whelan is the sister of one of them, Paul Whelan. he is unjustly imprisoned. he’s been there for years. You introduced her to the United Nations today. So she was there. She spoke and Lavrov was in the room. You told him to look into her eyes and see the pain she’s going through after losing her brother, she told CNN that Lavrov looked at her. said You asked him to do it and he did. No video but she said it happened. what do you think about it would he actually do that?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: I think he felt the pressure. i didn’t see him My focus was on my statement. But when I turned to him and said, “You should look into her eyes,” I know he was pretending to read a book and was actually looking up. And I’m glad she saw him looking at her. He could feel her pain and she could feel her suffering after not seeing her brother for nearly four years.
question: And she also mentioned imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, right? We’ve heard a lot about him. They are indicting him on a serious charge of espionage. I’m not looking. Do you have any idea if there is anything specific that Putin wants Gerszkovic to return?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: What Putin wants is to use individual Americans — civilians — as political and diplomatic pawns in his attack on Ukraine. He didn’t say specifically, I want to trade this, I want to trade that, but what he wants to do is whatever he’s trying to achieve, use it as a possible trade And we are doing everything possible to get Erin, every American citizen, get Evan, Paul, and free them from the horrors they are experiencing in the penal colony.
question: Before I go, I would like to ask you about Sudan. We know there will be a three-day ceasefire, but the country is clearly on the brink of civil war. The US Embassy was evacuated by special forces, SEAL Team 6. You remember a lot of reporting on what happened in Tripoli and the horrors there, right? Ambassador’s death. So they took refuge. But we know there are about 16,000. This is the official State Department estimate for the number of Americans left in Sudan. Are you committed to getting them all out? Or at this point, if you’re out, you’re out, otherwise…?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: As you know, we have been clear for months that Americans should not travel to Sudan. and advised the Americans to leave before this incident happened. But we are working with the United Nations to help Americans who have expressed their desire to leave. We provided overhead support to the United Nations convoy containing American citizens and committed several resources to support American citizens leaving Sudan. And I encourage you to do what is necessary to ensure that Americans remain safe during this three-day ceasefire.
question: Of course, you can’t force people to do it. And 16,000 is a lot of people. Ambassador, thank you very much. Thank you for your time tonight.
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: good. thank you very much.
###
[ad_2]
Source link
