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Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield
United States Representative to the United Nations
new york, new york
April 24, 2023
at the time of delivery
question: Ambassador, nice to meet you. I would like to ask you about one of the stronger comments that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made today.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: As in the Cold War, we have reached dangerous or even dangerous limits. The situation is exacerbated by the loss and trust of multilateralism.
question: what do you think about it
Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield: If confidence in multilateralism is lost, it is Russia’s fault. We are dealing with some very important issues such as pandemics, climate change, war and peace issues. And at that very point, Russia invaded one of its smaller neighbors, challenging the very foundation of the UN Charter and all the values with which we have been working since the creation of the United Nations.
So if this is a problem for the Russians, they are responsible for creating that problem. Their hypocrisy today was incredible. The fact that they called for a discussion of multilateralism despite their aggressive unilateral actions to the point of attacking their neighbors.
question: UN observers see Lavrov’s speech as a direct provocation to the West. How do you deal with such provocations?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: They didn’t just provoke the West. They have provoked the entire UN system. They provoked all member states. And I think it’s important to point out that 141 countries condemned their actions, all 14 Security Council members defending the values of the UN Charter in various ways and calling their actions multilateral. question their own commitments to inter-ministrism, their own commitments to the United Nations system.
Their gratuitous attacks on Ukraine cannot be justified. It cannot be put before us as an advocate for multilateralism. All Russia has to do is withdraw her own troops from Ukraine and end this war.
question: You accuse Russia of violating international law by unjustly detaining Americans. So you called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, and actually invited his family to that session today. Are you going to tell Sergei Lavrov anything about these two Americans?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: The Secretary of State spoke with Lavrov and I spoke with their permanent representative Vasily Nebenzha, my counterpart here in New York, and brought this up at that level. I have no plans to meet with Lavrov, but he knows our position and heard my statement loud and clear at the council today.
question: The UN Security Council is supposed to prevent wars like the ones we see now. If Russia has invaded a country before, is it a failure of this institution that Russia can invade another country, invade another country, and even preside over this institution?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: Member States’ confidence in the Council has been shaken, but it continues to function. We continue to address issues of peace and security around the world. We will have a meeting tomorrow to discuss the situation in Sudan. We have dealt with the situation in Libya. We met last week about the situation in Yemen. Thus, the Council is functioning despite Russia’s unilateral attack on Ukraine. But what they are doing is certainly changing the way the world views the Security Council, and how important it is to consider reforming the Security Council and truly evolving it to take peace issues into account. We strongly feel that The security we face today is different from the one we faced some 80 years ago when the United Nations was founded.
question: What reforms are needed to prevent one of the permanent members from invading another country?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: First and foremost, we need to make the Board representative of the world. As such, there is currently no permanent African representative on the Council and no permanent Security Council representative from Latin America. So expanding the Board and making it more representative is one of the things we definitely need to do.
question: You mentioned Latin America. We know that Sergey Lavrov traveled to Central and South America, including Cuba, before his trip to New York. Are you concerned about Russia’s growing influence in the region?
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: Russia is doing its best to win over as many countries as possible. But the truth of the matter is that only five countries have consistently supported Russia in the resolutions we have submitted to the General Assembly. In other words, they belong to minority communities and are fighting to attract more people into their territory, but failing in their efforts.
question: Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield, thank you for joining us.
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield: It was really nice to be able to work with Sumi-san. Thank you for calling me.
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