Former U.N. ambassador says global landscape worst he’s ever seen
Former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson on Sunday said he has never seen the state of international affairs in worse shape.
“There’s so many trouble spots,” Richardson told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on New York’s AM-970.
{mosads}“You’ve got Iraq, you’ve got the Iran situation, you’ve got Syria, you’ve got several wars in Africa going on, you’ve got Columbia and Venezuela fighting each other, you’ve got the immigration issue unsettled, you’ve got North Korea, you’ve got the refugee situation in Syria – this kind of explosion of problems.”
The former Democratic New Mexico governor said U.S. relations with Russia have “not been good” and advocated for a stronger international coalition to thwart Russian aggression in Syria and eastern Europe.
“What we need in Syria is an international coalition that basically gets [Syrian President Bashar] Assad out in some kind of transition, maybe he doesn’t lose his power completely, but we need an international coalition there,” Richardson said.
“The country’s collapsing, we’ve got thousands of refugees, but it shows that our relationship with Russia is not good,” he continued
Richardson also said the U.S. can lessen Russia’s leverage over Europe by exporting more oil and gas.
“It is a very big political game. What we need to do, I believe, is export our oil and gas. I think that makes sense,” Richardson, who served as secretary of Energy under President Clinton, said.
“It helps us geopolitically in eastern Europe against Russia, that squeezes countries with their natural gas,” he added.
The former ambassador also said the U.S. should negotiate a nuclear deal with North Korea similar to the agreement with Iran.
“We’ve made this deal with Iran, and I’m not entirely sold on that, I think with North Korea we need to approach them the same way,” Richardson said. “Look, North Korea, get rid of your nuclear weapons. In exchange, maybe you get some food, some humanitarian assistance, some energy assistance.”
He called the fascist state a “tinderbox” that could “explode by just totally ignoring the situation.”
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