American elections 2020. What does Putin’s silence mean? Other leaders who didn’t congratulate Joe Biden



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President Vladimir Putin, unlike his Western European counterparts who rushed to post congratulatory messages on Saturday, did not speak publicly until Sunday night about the election of the new US president, Joe Biden. Instead, four years ago, the Kremlin was sending a message to President Trump just hours after American press projections showed he was the winner ahead of Hillary Clinton, notes The New Tork Times.

“I want to congratulate the American people at the end of this election period and Donald Trump on his victory. Russia is ready and wants to fully restore relations with the United States,” the Kremlin reported on November 9, 2016.

Now there is silence in the Kremlin. “Putin is a good soldier and does not fight in front of enemies,” said Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst.

The first indications are that Putin is preparing for a deeply antagonistic relationship with the next president of the United States. Although Donald Trump never gave hope of a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, his foreign policy, which has always put America first, was in line with the Kremlin’s desire to weaken the Western alliance and increase the influence in the world. NOW.

But as for Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin has enough cause for concern. The president-elect sees Russia as one of the biggest security threats, promises to restore weak ties with European allies, and, as vice president of the Obama administration, has supported pro-Western politicians in Ukraine (no – and led its NATO anti-missile shield in Romania).

Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Duma’s foreign affairs committee, told reporters that “Biden is unlikely to make any positive changes to Washington’s policy towards Russia”, especially since he personally participated in Russia’s sanctions when he was vice president.

And if the Kremlin remained silent on Sunday, Vladimir Putin’s most vehement opponent, Alexei Navalny, brought him before the Russian president and sent his greetings on Twitter to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, congratulating the Americans. that they had “free and fair elections”, an indirect allusion to Putin’s opposite reality in Russia.

Why is Erdogan silent?

On the other hand, if in the case of Latin American leaders, such as the presidents of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaroand Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, reluctance to congratulate Joe Biden is explainable, as they are very close to Donald Trump, questioning the Turkish leader’s attitude, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had a sinuous relationship with the White House tenant, with ups and downs. Erdogan has not said a word about Joe Biden’s choice so far.

On Sunday, however, Ankara’s foreign ministry congratulated the winner of the presidential election in Guinea, but did not mention the vote in the United States, notes NBC News.

Turkey will likely have more to lose than other countries since Joe Biden’s victory. The president-elect will most likely raise his voice in relation to Ankara’s foreign military interventions and will not welcome Turkey’s close cooperation with Russia, especially in the military field.

Another important reason for the difference is Washington’s refusal to extradite the Muslim cleric Fetullah Gulen, public enemy No. 1 by Erdogan, accused of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.

It should be borne in mind, however, that Turkey and the US are NATO members and any animosity between them is directly interested in having good cooperation in the end.

Not even China said anything

Neither the president of China, Xi Jinping, said nothing about Joe Biden’s victory, even though he had a strained relationship with Donald Trump.

Before the US elections, China said it was not involved in the internal affairs of other countries.

Relations between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated significantly on several fronts: trade, technology, the coronavirus pandemic, human rights and China’s growing international affirmation. And while Trump’s rhetoric about China has been increasingly incisive over the past year, Joe Biden has occasionally gone even further, saying that Xi is a “thief”.

However, ordinary Chinese say they are relieved that Biden has won and hope there will be peace.

Iran prefers to wait

The Guardian He also noted the attitude of Iran, which is suffering from sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Tehran welcomes its defeat and says the US should now pay for the mistakes its leader made.

However, the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who will also end his term next summer, said he is waiting to see what Joe Biden does before deciding if there is a difference between him and Donald Trump.

On Sunday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamena ridiculed the US elections, saying they were an example of the “ugly face of liberal democracy”, which shows “the moral, civil and political decline of the American regime.”

No public comment has even come from the royal court Saudi Arabia, a country heavily dependent on the United States for defense. The left wing of the Democratic Party would like the United States to withdraw its support for Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen.

As for the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of Donald Trump, congratulated Joe Biden, but without naming him president-elect, notes The Guardian.

Publisher: Luana Pavaluca

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