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UN, USA depend on each other - Ukraine's envoy

The US President Bush has seriously cut contributions to the UN budget but had to backtrack soon.

UN, USA depend on each other - Ukraine's envoy
The Capitol, Washington, DC
Photo: Photo: EPA / UPG

The United States are unlikely to quarrel with the United Nations, the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Vladimir Yelchenko said in an exclusive interview with LB.ua.

"It's one thing when a president-elect says this, and quite another when you're full-scale president," said Yelchenko.

The Ukrainian diplomat believes that the United Nations needs the United States just as much as the United States needs the United Nations because global issues like Syria, Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq etc need to be resolved with the UN involvement.

"It is in the best interests of the United States to increase and strengthen the participation of the UN rather than trying to do the job themselves. In the modern world it is just not working," he said.

In Yelchenko's opinion, there are indicators that the new US administration realises the importance of the UN."

The new US permanent representative to the UN who replaced Samantha Power, Nikki Haley has once said she would agree to take the post only if she is included in the cabinet of President Trump [which was not the case in the previous Republican administrations]. That is, both she and President Trump demonstrate that the United Nations is important for their administration," said Yelchenko.

He also suggested that in the first phase Trump could try to implement threats to deal more firmly with the UN, and may even curtail contributions, but will eventually have to change his stance the way US President W. Bush did in his time.

"In those times, the new US ambassador to the UN was Mr. Bolton. He began with walking around threatening – either you unconditionally support the US position on any issue or may not even bother to attend meetings because everything will be as we say. But he realized after a few months that things are not being done in the United Nations that way. The US has seriously cut contributions to the UN budget but over time they still had to pay as indebtness," Yelchenko reminded.

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