US Senate confirms Antony Blinken as Secretary of State

Antony Blinken was on Tuesday confirmed by the United States Senate as the next Secretary of State, AFP reported. A long-time advisor to President Joe Biden, Blinken’s appointment was approved by a vote of 78-22. 

Blinken had earlier served as number two at the State Department during Barack Obama’s administration, when Biden was vice president. 

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Key members of the Republican Party backed Blinken’s appointment, unlike Donald Trump’s two secretaries of state, as both Mike Pompeo and Rex Tillerson scraping through as most Democrats stood opposed. 

Among the Republican Senators who supported Blinken were Marco Rubio, a critic of the leftist governments in Cuba and Venezuela and Lindsey Graham, known for his aggressive views on Syria and Iran. Both were close Trump allies on foreign policy. 

The top Republican Senator on the Senate Foreign Foreign Relations Committee, James Risch, called on his colleagues to support Blinken even as he acknowledged a few disagreements. 

“We need a secretary of state. This is the person for the job,” he said on the Senate Floor. “Of the many, many issues that we discussed, there was very little, in fact, no daylight between us on some of them,” he added. 

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He noted that he did not back Blinken’s support for returning to the Iran nuclear accord, from which Trump withdrew the United States.

But Risch pointed to Blinken’s stated willingness to take on Turkey, a NATO ally that has upset many lawmakers by buying a major weapons system from Russia.

In his confirmation hearing last week, Blinken also said he supported Trump’s tough approach to China and said he would not reverse Trump’s landmark decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Senator Robert Menendez, the committee’s top Democrat, pointed to Blinken’s ability to engage lawmakers across the political spectrum.

“I believe he is the right person to repair and restore our alliances to reinvigorate the relationship between the State Department and Congress,” Menendez said.

The stepson of a Holocaust survivor, Blinken, 58, is known for his passion for humanitarian causes but also his calm demeanour.