US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken condemned Republican senators who are blocking the appointment of dozens of ambassadors, believing that this case is detrimental to US national security.
Blinken said 62 candidates for Foreign Office positions, including 38 for ambassadorships, are still under consideration in the Senate, and approval has been limited to just five this year.
And the US Secretary of State emphasized that there would be no ambassadors for “sensitive positions” in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, whose appointment to this position was approved by the end of this summer.
Blinken said the remaining vacancies have been spread across Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, noting that there are candidates who have been waiting for their appointments for 18 months.
“The vacancies have a long-term negative impact on the security of the United States, including our ability to reassure allies and partners and counter the diplomatic efforts of our adversaries,” the official letter to the Senate said in this regard.
Blinken told a press conference that “few senators are keeping our best players out,” and in his criticism, Blinken singled out Senator Rand Paul, denouncing the “wide-ranging comment” he made about appointing State Department candidates to their posts.
The American diplomat stressed that this is “completely unfounded.”
Paul, with the support of other Republicans in the Senate, is linking his objections to candidates in exchange for more information from U.S. government agencies on the origins of “Covid-19.”
Paul believes that the virus could have been prepared in a US-funded Chinese research lab.
The US director of national intelligence said in a report released in June 2023 that there is no evidence that “Covid-19” was cooked in a Chinese laboratory, although US agencies disagreed with the report’s findings.
Source: AFP.