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While most world leaders have already sent their congratulations to US President-elect Joe Biden, some world powers, notably Russia and China, are freezing them for now while they await final developments. Other countries, including Iran, say his election will not change relations.
Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been silent since Saturday, when Democrat Joe Biden secured the presidency after clearing the threshold of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
Relations between Russia and Biden could still prove difficult following accusations that Moscow meddled in the last US presidential election in 2016, trying to divert Hilary Clinton’s vote toward eventual victor Donald Trump.
The Kremlin has denied it, but in 2016 Vladimir Putin was much quicker to congratulate Donald Trump, about an hour after his victory over Clinton.
Today, the Kremlin said it would await the official results of the US presidential election before making further comment and took note of the legal challenges that incumbent Donald Trump is taking.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe it is appropriate to wait for the official vote count.”
He added that the difference between now and 2016 was “quite obvious” as there were no announcements of legal challenges at the time.
Peskov said Moscow would be ready to work with whoever is declared the winner.
“I want to recall that President Putin has repeatedly said that he will respect any choice of the American people and that he would be willing to work with any elected president of the United States. In any case, we hope to enter into a dialogue with the next president of the United States and together we work ways to normalize our bilateral relations. “
But echoing the rhetoric of the Trump campaign, Russia’s own election chief Ella Pamfilova said voting by mail in the US elections paved the way for what she called massive electoral fraud, and said the system stopped ” a wide margin for possible counterfeits. “
Washington’s ties to Moscow sank to post-Cold War lows in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Biden was serving as President Barack Obama’s vice president at the time and has been highly critical of Russia ever since. He also criticized Trump for having “embraced so many autocrats around the world, starting with Vladimir Putin.”
While Putin has criticized Biden for this anti-Russian stance, he has welcomed his comments on nuclear weapons control and during the campaign he also defended Biden’s son Hunter against criticism from Trump.
China
Beijing and Chinese President Xi Jinping also have to publicly comment or congratulate Joe Biden. However, state-backed media has reported that a new resident in the White House could be good news for bilateral relations, especially when it comes to trade.
A trade agreement between China and the United States was signed in January 2020, but shortly after, relations rapidly deteriorated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
China said today that it will follow international custom in making a statement on the election result, once legal challenges to Joe Biden’s victory have been exhausted.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: “We have noted that Mr. Biden has declared the election victory. We understand that the outcome of the presidential election will be determined according to the laws and procedures of the United States.”
He added that China and the United States should improve their communications and handle their differences on the basis of mutual respect.
With the Biden presidency, tensions between the United States and China are likely to continue, but are more likely to focus on human rights issues, such as China’s crackdown on Hong Kong and its treatment of the Uighur minority in the region of Xinjiang.
But China will also hope that the internal difficulties the Biden administration will face in terms of pushing forward policies will divert some of the focus from its actions.
Turkey
Turkey has said that it will only congratulate the winner of the election after the voting result is finalized.
Ankara has been at odds with its NATO ally Washington over a number of different issues ranging from its policy in Syria to Turkey’s purchase of Russian missile defense systems.
This weekend, Turkey insisted that it wanted to continue working with the next administration, but a spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan, Omer Celik, said any congratulatory calls would only come once the results are finalized, “out of respect for the United States. and the American people. “
Brazil
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is a clear ally of Donald Trump and has visibly refrained from acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory.
Instead, he said he would congratulate “whoever is elected” when “the time is right,” his vice president said today.
Referring to Trump’s allegations that the vote was marred by widespread “fraud,” Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourao said Bolsonaro was waiting for those allegations to be resolved.
“I think the president is waiting for the end of all that mess, the discussion about whether there were false votes or not, before commenting,” he said.
Bolsonaro, a far-right politician sometimes called the ‘tropical Trump’ and has come under fire for his stance from Brazilian opposition leaders.
He openly supported Trump’s reelection bid in a break with Brazilian diplomatic tradition.
Protecting the Amazon rainforest is likely to be a clash between him and Biden, who said during his campaign that he would work to better protect the environment there.
Iran
Iran said today that nothing will change between it and its archenemy, the United States, under Joe Biden, unless the president-elect takes steps to correct what he called America’s “wrong path.”
“We will certainly look closely at the actions and words of the next American administration,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.
He denied that Iran had any contact with the new administration and said Tehran would observe actions, rather than words. Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kamenei said the result “would have no effect” on Tehran’s policies toward Washington.
For his part, Biden has promised a change in US policy toward Iran, offering it what he called a “credible path back to diplomacy.” However, he has little room for maneuver between his planned inauguration on January 20 next year and the Iranian presidential elections set for June 18.
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