Vitaly Churkin: A Sardonic Style, but Always Willing to Negotiate<br />21, 2017<br />UNITED NATIONS — On a cold February afternoon three years ago, Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador<br />to the United Nations, summoned reporters to the Russian mission on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.<br />Mr. Churkin, who died suddenly while at work on Monday after a decade as ambassador, had long defended Moscow’s staunch ally, President Bashar al-Assad<br />of Syria, even as Syrian forces blocked humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in opposition-held areas during the long, brutal civil war.<br />"His line of defense with the U.S. was ‘Look at your track record.’" A United Nations diplomat recalled<br />a closed-door meeting in which Mr. Churkin dismissed a suggestion to include women in peace talks.<br />Yet Mr. Churkin was among the first to seize on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where<br />Western nations are backing a Saudi-led military coalition battling Houthi insurgents.<br />Last fall, in an article on the military assault on Aleppo, Syria, I quoted Mr. Churkin as saying, through a Russian interpreter,<br />that Mr. Assad had shown "enviable restraint." He upbraided me publicly the next day.<br />Even after the public quarrels over the Syrian military assault on Aleppo, Mr.<br />Churkin agreed to huddle in a room with his French and American counterparts.<br />Mr. Churkin yawned, the diplomat recalled, and then he walked out before she could finish.
