US diplomats walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Russia’s war in Ukraine on Monday while France’s representative was speaking.
The incident came two days after an online argument between US and French officials over Washington’s failure to vote for the renewal of the four-year term of the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk.
France’s UN mission in Geneva wrote on Saturday that the United States is no longer a “beacon of human rights” and has isolated itself from the international arena, standing in the same line as North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali and Russia.
Replying in a post on the social media platform X, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, said France had voted for a human rights chief who lectures free and sovereign democracies such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel while maintaining close relations with the world’s worst oppressors.
After the walkout, the alternate US representative, Dan Negrea, told the council that their delegation would continue to leave meetings in this way until France withdrew its “contemptuous and disrespectful remarks.”
France’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jérôme Bonnafont, did not refer to the walkout while speaking. He said France is working to preserve the United Nations’ independence and its capacity to function effectively.
Volker Türk has fallen out of favour with the Trump administration for criticising violations of international law by Israel and the United States in Palestine and Iran. In the UN General Assembly vote on renewing his term, 144 countries voted in favour and only 10 against. Thirteen countries abstained.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has cut funding to various UN agencies since 2025 and withdrawn from several UN bodies. The United States had also threatened to reassess its relationship and engagement with the United Nations over the renewal of Volker Türk’s term.
Washington and Paris are also at odds over NATO spending, trade policy and Trump’s threat to take Greenland, the NATO-member territory under Denmark.
France and other European countries have faced Trump’s anger for refusing to take part directly in the US-Israeli offensive against Iran.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report