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Armenia's Prime Minister Talks with Putin in Moscow While Allies' Ties are Under Strain

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries in Almaty, Kazakhstan, February 2, 2024. (Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via Reuters)
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries in Almaty, Kazakhstan, February 2, 2024. (Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via Reuters)
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Armenia's Prime Minister Talks with Putin in Moscow While Allies' Ties are Under Strain

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries in Almaty, Kazakhstan, February 2, 2024. (Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via Reuters)
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries in Almaty, Kazakhstan, February 2, 2024. (Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via Reuters)

Armenia's prime minister visited Moscow and held talks Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid spiraling tensions between the estranged allies.
Putin hosted Nikol Pashinyan for talks following a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-dominated economic alliance they both attended earlier in the day. The negotiations came a day after Putin began his fifth term at a glittering Kremlin inauguration, The Associated Press said.
In brief remarks at the start of the talks, Putin said that bilateral trade was growing, but acknowledged “some issues concerning security in the region.”
Pashinyan, who last visited Moscow in December, said that “certain issues have piled up since then.”
Armenia's ties with its longtime sponsor and ally Russia have grown increasingly strained after Azerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign in September to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there.
Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after the previous round of hostilities in 2020 of failing to stop Azerbaijan's onslaught. Moscow, which has a military base in Armenia, has rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.
The Kremlin, in turn, has been angered by Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-dominated security and economic alliances.
Just as Pashinyan was visiting Moscow on Wednesday, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry announced that the country will stop paying fees to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-dominated security pact. Armenia has previously suspended its participation in the grouping as Pashinyan has sought to bolster ties with the European Union and NATO.

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Biden’s Departing UN Envoy Says US Rivals Will Fill the Vacuum If Trump Abandons Global Leadership

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
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Biden’s Departing UN Envoy Says US Rivals Will Fill the Vacuum If Trump Abandons Global Leadership

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)

The outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations says she watched America’s leadership diminish in the world during Donald Trump’s first presidency and China fill the vacuum. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is warning that if it happens again during Trump's second term, adversaries will move in anew.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Thomas-Greenfield said during Joe Biden’s presidency, the United States again engaged with the world, rebuilt alliances and reestablished America’s leadership.

"That is the gift that we hand over to the next administration," she said, "and I hope that they will accept that gift in the spirit in which it is being given to them."

Advice to Trump's choice for UN ambassador

In a brief meeting with Trump’s nominee, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, Thomas-Greenfield told her "that the UN is important, and that it is important that we not cede any space to our adversaries."

Those rivals "will change the rules of the road," she warned. "And so, US leadership is extraordinarily important."

In his first term, Trump called the United Nations "just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time." He suspended funding to its health and family planning agencies and withdrew from its cultural and education organization UNESCO and top human rights body. That's raised uncertainty about what's ahead, especially because the United States is the UN's biggest single donor.

Stefanik has called for a "complete reassessment" of US funding for the 193-nation world body, described the UN as a "den of antisemitism" and urged a continued halt to support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.

Of course, the UN isn’t perfect and needs reforms, Thomas-Greenfield said.

But to those who criticize the UN as a big bureaucracy where little gets done or decisions are ignored, she said she always quotes the late former US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, who said "if it didn’t exist, we would invent it."

Thomas-Greenfield stressed the UN’s importance in dealing with major global issues, from war to humanitarian aid and the need to regulate artificial intelligence.

The United States must stay at the table, she said, "so that we can have influence and work with the entire system to ensure that the system delivers to the world."

The most important table is the horseshoe-shaped one for the 15 members of the UN Security Council, the most powerful UN body, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security.

Thomas-Greenfield said she gave Stefanik the same advice she got — to meet quickly with all of them — including permanent members Russia and China, rivals with veto power.

"She’s going to be sitting around the table with them on almost a daily basis," Thomas-Greenfield said. "So, it’s important to know the individuals you are going to have to engage with, whether they are friends or foes."

The failure to solve global crises

In her final emotional speech to the Security Council, Thomas-Greenfield focused on Sudan, saying she wished there was closure on one crisis the world faces — ticking off Gaza, Ukraine, Congo and other hotspots.

She told AP the UN and the world "have to be more proactive in our engagement" to try to end these conflicts.

Sudan, where nearly two years of fighting has created famine and the world’s worst displacement crisis, is an example "of where as an international community, we could have done more sooner and ended the suffering sooner."

Her focus on Africa Thomas-Greenfield, now 72, started her career as an academic and lived in Liberia, where she first saw US diplomats at work and decided to join the Foreign Service in 1982.

She spent much of her more than 40-year career in Africa, returning to Liberia as ambassador, and rose to be assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 2013 to 2017, when Trump took office.

Biden brought her out of retirement to become UN ambassador and a member of his Cabinet.

At the United Nations, she said she’s gained a much broader perspective on Africa’s important place in the world and urged recognition of its immense resources — its people.

"Africa is an extraordinarily young continent," Thomas-Greenfield said. "These young people will be the future of the world."

Using ‘gumbo diplomacy’

At the UN, Thomas-Greenfield harkened back to her Louisiana roots, saying she was going to engage in "gumbo diplomacy" by cooking the state’s famous dish — which mixes up lots of different flavors — for fellow diplomats.

Diplomacy is about bringing together people with different ideas, backgrounds, interests and guidance "and coming up with a solution that we all can live with," she said.

"That’s what I think diplomacy is about. That’s what gumbo is about. So gumbo diplomacy has been very successful," Thomas-Greenfield said, pointing to over 200 UN resolutions adopted during her four years as ambassador, 77 of them drafted by the United States.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said "she has connected with people of all backgrounds and beliefs — using her signature ‘gumbo diplomacy,’ always speaking from the head, but also from the heart."

Now, Thomas-Greenfield said she plans to spend time with her grandchildren and work with college students to encourage "the next generation of multilateralists who will be filling the halls of the United Nations."

As a Black woman, she said her advice to young Black men and women is "dream big," and if things don't go your way, look for another tack and "open doors that you hadn't intended to go through."