Biden’s Envoy at United Nations Is Largely Out of Town During Month America Heads Security Council

The American ambassador at the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has been traveling this month, when America is holding the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council — and she’s not done yet. Like Willie Nelson, she plans to get on the road again.Ms. Thomas-Greenfield, fondly known at Turtle Bay as LTG, tells the Sun she may go to the Turkish-Syrian border “in the coming weeks.” She planned to go there earlier in May, but that leg of her trip was canceled. Instead she spent two days in Brussels, Belgium, last week, where she hobobbed with European leaders, met with Turkey’s deputy foreign minister, and attended a conference on “supporting the future of Syria and the region.”A week ago, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield flew to Washington, D.C., to host at the White House a “global summit on Covid 19.” On Saturday she traveled to her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she gave a commencement address. On Sunday she also gave a similar address at Morningside’s Columbia University. The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically among the UN top body’s 15 members. The month-long stint is hectic and time consuming for diplomats of the country that holds the presidency.Diplomats and officials here say a presidency month is the busiest time of year for a head of mission. At that time UN ambassadors usually refrain from leaving Turtle Bay, where the world body is headquartered. Globe-trotting at that time is left for other top members of the foreign ministries.Some American diplomats say that UN ambassadors should only rarely travel outside of New York at any time, except for consultations at the State Department or the White House.“Other than the usual trips between New York City and Washington, the only other trips I took were to visit my daughter a couple of times at Yale, and to attend Mrs. Thatcher’s 80th birthday party in London, which was more personal than official,” a former national security adviser to President Trump, John Bolton, told the Sun, referring to his time as UN ambassador. “There was too much mischief going on on First Avenue to leave it unattended,” Mr. Bolton added.In his stint as UN ambassador, between August 2005 and December 2006, Mr. Bolton became widely known for holding Turtle Bay officials to account for misdeeds. He also was famous for having prickly relations with America’s adversaries and detractors at the UN.Ms. Thomas-Greenfield, in contrast, is widely liked at Turtle Bay. She has ratcheted up speeches against Russia since the Ukraine invasion, but her style is cordial and her demeanor is well suited to a body where international cooperation at times seems to trump national interests. As part of the council’s presidency, the American UN mission is launching this week what it calls “Days of Action on Global Food Security.” Secretary of State Blinken is scheduled to come to town and preside over a Security Council meeting on that topic.As war rages between two major wheat exporters, Ukraine and Russia, food shortages are indeed a growing global problem. Yet, it is doubtful the council can help address the situation, as Russia has the power to, and will, veto any meaningful council action. Similarly, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield’s road trips out of New York seemed designed more to highlight problems than to address them head on. Asked by the Sun yesterday if her travels in May have interfered with her role as council president, Ms. Thomas-Greenfiled said, “While Ukraine has really sucked a lot of our focus, we cannot forget the rest of the world. So, I traveled a couple of weeks ago — or last weekend — to Brussels, to a Syrian pledging conference.”Added the ambassador, “I had intended actually to go to Turkey to the Syrian border but was not able to do that. So, I do plan to do that in the coming weeks, because I think it’s important that we not forget the rest of the world as we all focus our attention on the situation in Ukraine.”With Russia holding a permanent seat, and veto power, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield wasn’t able to unite the Security Council this year to pass any Ukraine-related resolution. Instead, she led an effort to enact a nonbinding condemnation at the General Assembly, and, separately, remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. As council president, however, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield managed to unite the 15 members around one agreed new topic only. Last week she read out an official council statement that “strongly condemned the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.” The Security Council has not condemned the killing of at least 14 journalists in the Ukraine war. It has not addressed the Saudi killing of a Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi. Nor did it condemn al-Qaeda’s 2002 televised throat slashing of the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl. Yet, as Israel was widely blamed for Abu Akleh’s death, the council was able to unite. That kind of unity is what Mr. Bolton often warned about — and is likely what he meant by denouncing UN “mischief.”

Biden’s Envoy at United Nations Is Largely Out of Town During Month America Heads Security Council

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