US envoy leaves Russia as detente faltering
MOSCOW: The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, is departing Moscow, leaving Washington without a top envoy in the country as a rapprochement being pushed by US President Donald Trump falters.
Moscow earlier this week accused Washington of not being 'ready' to take steps to restore the normal functioning of their embassies, hobbled by years of tit-for-tat restrictions and expulsions of diplomats.
Trump has not yet nominated a successor to Tracy, the first woman to hold the post and who was appointed by ex-President Joe Biden and is leaving after two-and-a-half years in the role.
Trump has overhauled Biden's policy of isolating Vladimir Putin over his Ukraine offensive, holding several calls with the Kremlin chief and raising the prospect of boosting bilateral ties.
'I am proud to have represented my country in Moscow during such a challenging time,' Tracy said in a message posted by the embassy on social media.
She also quoted lines from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, Russia's famed national poet.
Diplomats from the two countries have held several rounds of negotiations under Trump on issues ranging from the Ukraine conflict and prisoner exchanges to normalizing embassy operations.
But on Wednesday the Kremlin accused Washington of being 'not yet ready' to remove barriers to the work of their respective diplomatic missions.
Trump has shown increasing frustration with Putin over his refusal to end Moscow's three-year offensive on Ukraine.
Since the Republican returned to the White House, Putin has repeatedly rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire, demanded Kyiv cede more territory, urged his troops to keep advancing and escalated deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukraine.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
13 minutes ago
- Arab News
Mamdani's NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say
There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closedOverall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slurWASHINGTON: Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001 attacks, advocates said on were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day long a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday's primary after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city's first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election.'We call on public officials of every party — including those whose allies are amplifying these smears — to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,' said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR advocacy group said its hate monitoring system includes its own scraping and analysis of posts, online submissions by the public and notifications from law enforcement. About 62 percent of the anti-Muslim posts against Mamdani originated on X, CAIR Action close to Republican President Donald Trump, including one of his sons, are among those spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, advocates Trump Jr, the president's son, wrote on X on Wednesday that 'New York City has fallen' while sharing a post that said New Yorkers had 'voted for' 9/11. Also on Wednesday, Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an AI-generated picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a Trump has pursued domestic policies that rights advocates have described as anti-Muslim, including banning travel from some predominantly Muslim or Arab countries in his first term and attempting to deport pro-Palestinian students in his current White House, which did not respond to a request for comment, has denied claims of discrimination against Muslims. Trump and his allies have said they oppose Mamdani and others due to what they call the Democrats' 'radical left' New York City Police Department said earlier this month its hate crime unit was probing anti-Muslim threats against Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, which documents hate against Asian Americans, and CAIR said attacks against Mamdani mirrored those endured by other South Asian and Muslim political figures, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida have called Mamdani antisemitic, citing his pro-Palestinian advocacy and his criticism of Israel's military assault on Gaza after an attack by Hamas militants in October has condemned antisemitism and has the backing of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish. Lander also ran in the Democratic advocates have noted rising antisemitism and Islamophobia since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, with fatal US incidents including the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington and the stabbing of a Muslim child in and other Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, said their criticism of Israel is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Arab News
35 minutes ago
- Arab News
Kremlin says Estonia's readiness to host nuclear-capable NATO jets threatens Russia
Pevkur said Estonia was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessaryPeskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to RussiaMOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday that Estonia's stated readiness to host NATO allies' U.S.-made F-35A stealth jets, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, posed a direct threat to Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees news outlet on Thursday that Estonia - which borders Russia and is a rotating base for NATO jets tasked with protecting Baltic airspace - was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary."If some of them, regardless of their country of origin, have a dual-use capability to carry nuclear weapons it doesn't affect our position on hosting F-35s in any way," the outlet cited him as saying."Of course we are ready to host our allies."Pevkur was speaking after Britain, a NATO member, announced it would buy at least 12 F-35A jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that they would join NATO's airborne nuclear about Pevkur's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia."Of course it would be an immediate danger," Peskov told a journalist from Russia's Life news outlet. He said the statement was one of many "absurd thoughts" voiced by politicians in the Baltic region, which comprises Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania."We have practically no relations with the Baltic republics because it is very difficult to make them worse," he said.
Saudi Gazette
an hour ago
- Saudi Gazette
Iran's FM says talks with Washington 'complicated' by US strikes on nuclear sites
TEHRAN — Iran's top diplomat said on Friday that the possibility of new negotiations with the United States on his country's nuclear programme has been "complicated" by US strikes on three of the sites, which he conceded had caused "serious damage." The US was one of the parties to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which saw Iran agree to limit its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits. That deal unravelled in 2018 after President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out during his first term, calling it the "worst deal ever negotiated." Trump had suggested he is interested in new talks with Iran and said the two sides would meet next week. In an interview on Iranian state television broadcast late on Thursday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear program, but suggested it would not be anytime soon. "No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations," he said. "No time has been set, no promise has been made and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks." The American decision to intervene militarily "made it more complicated and more difficult" for talks on Iran's nuclear programme, Araghchi said. In Friday prayers, many imams stressed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's message from the day before that the war had been a victory for Iran. Cleric Hamzeh Khalili, who also is the deputy chief justice of Iran, vowed during a prayer service in Tehran that the courts would prosecute people accused of spying for Israel "in a special way." During the 12-day conflict with Israel, Iran hanged several people who it already had in custody on espionage charges, sparking fears from activists that it could conduct a wave of executions after the fighting ended. Authorities have reportedly detained dozens in various cities on the charge of cooperation with Israel. Israel attacked Iran on 13 June, targeting its nuclear sites, defence systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists in waved of strikes. In almost two weeks of fighting, Israel said it killed some 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group. Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people. Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin said Friday that in some areas it had exceeded its operational goals, but needed to remain vigilant. "We are under no illusion, the enemy has not changed its intentions," he said. The US stepped in on Sunday to hit Iran's three most important nuclear sites with a wave of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily-fortified targets. Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at the US military base, Al Udeida, in Qatar on Monday but caused no known casualties. Trump said the American attacks "completely and fully obliterated" Iran's nuclear programme, though Khamenei on Thursday accused the US president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes did not "achieve anything significant." There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something that it told the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that it planned to do. Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA Director Rafael Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordow site, which is built into a mountain, "is very, very, very considerable." Among other things, he said, centrifuges are "quite precise machines" and it's "not possible" that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs would not have caused "important physical damage." "These centrifuges are no longer operational," he said. Araghchi himself acknowledged "the level of damage is high and it's serious damage." He added that Iran had not yet decided whether to allow IAEA inspectors to assess the damage, but they would be kept out "for the time being". — Euronews
