At the meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey D. Feltman, filled in for US Secretary of State, John Kerry, when the latter had to leave to attend to the Ukraine crisis.

This shows that Feltman is not an international civil servant, but a U.S. official attached to the United Nations. He retains his prerogatives as former Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East Affairs and combines them with his new international functions.

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs is the second highest UN official. He oversees all negotiations in crisis situations. In the leaked recording of Victoria Nuland’s telephone conversation, the Assistant Secretary of State said she had made sure with Jeffrey Feltman that the UN would be represented in Ukraine by a US-friendly person [1].

[1] “What about apologizing to Ukraine, Mrs. Nuland?”, Oriental Review, Voltaire Network, 7 February 2014.