联合国-琳达·托马斯·格林菲尔德周四就任美国驻联合国大使和高级官员俄罗斯一名联合国外交官表示，红地毯将铺开，莫斯科准备与拜登政府合作，但“需要两个人的努力”
在副总统卡马拉·哈里斯周三宣誓就职后，托马斯·格林菲尔德前往纽约，并计划于周四下午向联合国秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯递交国书。
她将立即投入新的工作，处理全球和平与安全问题俄罗斯因为美国将于周一接任强大的联合国安理会轮值主席国。她甚至可能决定参加周五的理事会会议。
“我们期待着与她互动，”俄罗斯驻联合国副代表迪米特里·波利扬斯基周三对一群记者说。“作为我们安理会大家庭的一员，你可以指望我们对她最有利的态度和积极的情绪。”
注意到托马斯·格林菲尔德作为美国外交官的几十年，他说“与专业人士互动总是更容易。”
但他表示，在拜登的领导下，美国认为俄罗斯是“敌人”和“威胁”的观点没有改变，因此“很难想象在新政府立场的起点上，与我们的互动会发生什么变化。”
尽管如此，波利亚纳斯基说，“俄罗斯和美国可以一起做很多事情”，“我们将根据新政府的所作所为来评判它。”
“我们赞成合作，”他说。但“探戈需要两个人，我们真的准备好了跳舞，但我们需要一个好的、可靠的伙伴，他知道所有的动作，并且尊重我们”作为一个有着特定立场的国家，“不把我们视为威胁”，并且“在许多问题上看到我们明显的国家利益”。
托马斯·格林菲尔德(Thomas-Greenfield)是美国外交部35年的退休老兵，后来晋升为非洲事务助理国务卿，他在特朗普政府期间辞职。她将是第三位非洲裔美国人，也是第二位担任联合国职务的非洲裔美国女性。
她在周二的确认受到了民主党人和联合国支持者的欢呼，这些人对前总统表示哀悼唐纳德·特朗普并为乔·拜登总统回归多边主义而欢欣鼓舞。
在参议院关于她的提名的听证会上，托马斯·格林菲尔德称中国是威胁世界的“战略对手”，并称她在2019年发表的一篇赞扬中国在非洲的举措但没有提到其侵犯人权行为的演讲是一个错误。
参议院以78票对20票通过了她的提名，共和党的反对者说她对中国态度软弱，不会在联合国坚持美国的原则
托马斯-格林菲尔德(Thomas-Greenfield)在听证会上表示，华盛顿不仅将与盟友合作，“还将寻求与俄罗斯和中国的共同点，向伊朗施加更多压力，迫使他们重新严格遵守”2015年控制其核计划的协议。特朗普在2018年将美国从协议中撤出，拜登表示，美国将重新加入协议，尽管如何加入仍是一个主要问题。
波利亚纳斯基说，俄罗斯欢迎伊朗核协议和美国延长《削减战略武器条约》核协议的“积极进展”，并补充说，莫斯科准备“首先在战略稳定领域”进行认真和有意义的讨论。"
托马斯-格林菲尔德在听证会上强调，美国将重新参与国际事务，促进美国的价值观——“支持民主，尊重普遍人权，促进和平与安全。”
联合国人权观察主任路易斯·夏博瑙(Louis Charbonneau)告诉美联社，托马斯·格林菲尔德(Thomas-Greenfield)应该将促进人权作为“重中之重”。
他说:“她应该放弃特朗普政府对人权的选择性做法——热情谴责敌人的侵权行为，同时忽视以色列和沙特阿拉伯等盟友的侵权行为。”
“但在中国和叙利亚问题上仍有继续的空间，”夏博瑙说。“她应该将扩大愿意公开反对北京侵犯人权的国家联盟作为她在联合国的主要目标之一，而不是试图将非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲国家纳入其中。她应该继续推动扩大人道主义援助进入叙利亚所有地区。”
New US envoy to UN gets red carpet welcome from Russia
UNITED NATIONS -- Linda Thomas-Greenfield takes up her post as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday and a senior Russian diplomat said the red carpet will be rolled out and Moscow is ready to work with the Biden administration -- but “it takes two to tango.”
After being sworn in on Wednesday by Vice President Camala Harris, Thomas-Greenfield headed to New York where she is scheduled to present her credentials to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Thursday afternoon.
She will be jumping right into her new job, tackling global peace and security issues with Russia, China and a dozen other countries because the United States takes over the rotating presidency of the powerful U.N. Security Council on Monday. And she might even decide to attend a council meeting on Friday.
“We are looking forward to interactions with her,” Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told a group of reporters Wednesday. “You can count on our most favorable attitudes and positive emotions towards her as a member of our Security Council family.”
Noting Thomas-Greenfield's decades as a U.S. diplomat, he said “it's always easier to interact with professionals."
But he said America’s view that Russia is “an enemy” and a “threat” hasn’t changed under Biden, so “it’s very difficult to imagine how the interaction with us might change with such starting points of the positions of the new administration.”
Nonetheless, Polyansky said, “there are a lot of things Russia and the United States can do together” and “we will judge the new administration by what it does.”
“We’re in favor of cooperation,” he said. But “it takes two to tango, and really we’re ready to dance, but we need a good and reliable partner who knows all the moves and who respects us” as a country with certain positions, “doesn’t view us as a threat” and sees “our obvious national interests in many issues.”
Thomas-Greenfield, a retired 35-year veteran of the U.S. foreign service who rose to be assistant secretary of state for Africa, resigned during the Trump administration. She will be the third African-American, and the second African-American woman, to hold the U.N. post.
Her confirmation on Tuesday was hailed by Democrats and advocates of the United Nations who had lamented former President Donald Trump’s “America First” unilateral approach to international affairs and rejoiced at President Joe Biden’s return to multilateralism.
At the Senate hearing on her nomination, Thomas-Greenfield called China “a strategic adversary” that threatens the world, and called a speech she gave in 2019 that praised China’s initiatives in Africa but made no mention of its human rights abuses a mistake.
The Senate voted 78-20 to confirm her with Republican opponents saying she was soft on China and would not stand up for U.S. principles at the U.N.
Thomas-Greenfield said at the hearing that Washington will be working not only with allies “but to see where we can find common ground with the Russians and the Chinese to put more pressure on the Iranians to push them back into strict compliance” with the 2015 agreement to rein in their nuclear program. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018 and Biden has indicated the U.S. will rejoin it, though how that might happen remains a major question.
Polyansky said Russia welcomes the “”positive developments” on the Iran nuclear deal and the U.S. agreement to extend the START nuclear agreement, adding that Moscow is ready for serious and meaningful discussions “first and foremost in the area of strategic stability.”
Thomas-Greenfield stressed at the hearing that the U.S. will be reengaging internationally and promoting American values -- “support for democracy, respect for universal human rights, and the promotion of peace and security.”
Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director for Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press that Thomas-Greenfield should promote human rights as “a top priority.”
“She should abandon the Trump administration’s selective approach to human rights – enthusiastically condemning its enemies’ abuses while ignoring rights violations of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“But there’s room for continuity on China and Syria," Charbonneau said. “She should make expanding the coalition of nations willing to speak out against Beijing’s human rights abuses one of her chief goals at the U.N., above trying to bring African, Asian, and Latin American states into the fold. And she should continue to push for expanded humanitarian access to all parts of Syria.”
