Washington: US Secretary Antony Blinken Appealed to the Senate on Tuesday to quickly confirm the nomination of President Joe Biden for a position related to national security, quoting the risk of attacks that are always there.
“It is very important that we accelerate the process of appointments for national security because disaster attacks can occur with little or without notice,” said Blinken to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hear US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Senator Bob Menendez, Chairman of the Democrat Committee, asked the Senate on Monday to confirm four of the 80 nominations of the State Department now delayed before the Senate, many of them were blocked by the Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
Three of the four was confirmed with round approval: Donald Lu as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs, Brian Nichols to become Assistant Secretary of State for the affairs of the West Hemisphere and Brett Holmgren to become assistant Secretary of State for intelligence and research.
Cruz blocked the fourth, Marcela Escobari to become a US agency assistant administrator for international development.
Cruz said he had blocked nominations until Biden imposed more sanctions on the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipe.
The pipe will take natural gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea, past Ukraine.
The Russian Gazprom company said on Friday finished construction.