Tag: Diplomacy

Russia’s FM Lavrov Slams US Double Standards over Israel, Ukraine War

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed US double standards over Syria’s Golan Heights and the Donbass region in Ukraine.

Russia’s FM Lavrov Slams US Double Standards over Israel, Ukraine War

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Lavrov accuses U.S. of double standards over Golan Heights, Donbas

Secretary Antony J. Blinken with Wolf Blitzer of CNN’s The Situation Room

QUESTION: The Trump administration, as you know, also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria back in 1967. Will your administration, the Biden administration, continue to see the Golan Heights as part of Israel?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel’s security. As long as Assad is in power in Syria, as long as Iran is present in Syria, militia groups backed by Iran, the Assad regime itself – all of these pose a significant security threat to Israel, and as a practical matter, the control of the Golan in that situation I think remains of real importance to Israel’s security. Legal questions are something else. And over time, if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we’d look at. But we are nowhere near as that.

Xi, Assad announce China-Syria strategic partnership

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Cooperation to help improve livelihood of Syrian people after turmoil

Xi, Assad announce China-Syria strategic partnership

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Leaders of Syria and China announce strategic partnership as part of Asian Games diplomacy

Assad’s visit parallels in some ways that of Russian President Vladimir Putin last year for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

AP trying to draw parallels between Russia-Ukraine and China-Taiwan.

Zelensky to Beg House Speaker McCarthy for More Taxpayer Money, While Biden Bullies Developing Countries to Betray Russia and China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Zelensky arrived in New York on Monday and will head to Washington after the UN General Assembly

House Speaker McCarthy to Meet With Zelensky This Week

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Biden urges UN to not abandon Ukraine

Biden’s call was part of his long-running theme to rally democracies against the globe’s rising autocracies. On Tuesday, he went further, implicitly urging developing nations to turn their backs on Russia and China’s autocracies and join an inter-connected, rules-based order promoted by the U.S. and its allies.

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Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, skipped the general assembly, as did China’s Xi Jinping, but Beijing’s presence loomed large on the east side of Manhattan. While much of Biden’s speech read as a pitch to the developing world, its true subject was China, although the president tried to publicly downplay tensions with Beijing, as he did just weeks ago at the G20.

Neutrality and Nonalignment Are Signs of Strength

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

In Defense of Neutrals: Why they’re more than just fence sitters.

The demise of neutrality has been much exaggerated. Finnish membership and Sweden’s accession application to NATO have been interpreted in some corners as evidence of its decline. In wars of aggression, refusing to pick sides is untenable, some hold, as they berate those who still do not send weapons to Ukraine or sanction Russia.

Neutrality and Nonalignment Are Signs of Strength

AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

You might not know it by the relatively scant news coverage, but the U.S. congressional delegation, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that visited Brazil, Chile, and Colombia in August marked a big step forward in the development of a new U.S. approach to Latin America and highlighted the important role that the U.S. progressive left has to play in it.

AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America

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AOC urges US to apologize for meddling in Latin America: ‘We’re here to reset relationships’

Asked if the left needs to build a counterweight network, Ocasio-Cortez, whose trip to Latin America was branded “AOC’s socialist sympathy tour” by Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal newspaper, replied: “I absolutely believe that the battle for democracy must be transnational and it must be global, and it especially must be hemispheric.

GOP debate bloodbath over Ukraine leaves room for agreement — on China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

GOP debate bloodbath over Ukraine leaves room for agreement — on China

For all the talk about a divided GOP on foreign policy, it should be clear that when it comes to China, these eight candidates are more in agreement about where the country should be training its firepower, than not. Pinning them each down on what exactly they are proposing, and how far they will go to meet the threat, would be an interesting next exercise, sans the bloodletting.