UNITED KINGDOM : U.S. President Joe Biden will seek to strengthen his bonds with King Charles and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in separate meetings on Monday, in which Ukraine and climate change are anticipated to take up most of the agenda.
On Sunday evening, Biden landed in London to begin a three-nation journey that would include a NATO summit in Lithuania intended to express unity with Ukraine in its conflict with Russia while still refusing to admit Kyiv as a member of the defence alliance.
During their meeting at Windsor Castle on Monday, the 80-year-old president and the 74-year-old king will engage in discussions regarding strategies to enhance private investment in combating climate change, which both leaders acknowledge as an existential threat.
“The president has huge respect for the king’s commitment to the climate issue in particular. He has been a clarion voice on this issue,” said Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, during a press briefing on Air Force One on Sunday.
Sullivan stated that President Biden aims to strengthen his personal bond with King Charles. He stated the two leaders—who don’t have a deep familiarity with each other—had a phone conversation earlier this year that he described as “extremely cordial.”
Furthermore, on Monday, Biden will make a trip to 10 Downing Street to engage in a relaxed meeting with Sunak, which will be their fifth encounter within the span of the last few months. Sullivan stated that this visit is more akin to an ongoing discussion than a formal gathering. It will serve as President Biden’s inaugural visit to Downing Street since assuming office.
Sullivan said that the two leaders will exchange information before the NATO summit in Lithuania, scheduled to commence on Tuesday, and that it will primarily revolve around the Ukraine crisis, which has strengthened the alliance’s unity.
Prior to his trip, Biden advised exercising caution regarding Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO, stating that NATO’s mutual defence agreement could entangle the alliance in the conflict with Russia.
“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden stated in a CNN interview aired on Sunday.
Biden’s recent visit occurred shortly after his decision to authorise the shipment of contentious U.S. cluster munitions to Ukraine.
Over 100 countries, including the United Kingdom, consider cluster munitions to be illegal because they frequently disperse numerous smaller explosive submunitions that can result in indiscriminate casualties across a large territory.
Ukraine, Russia, and the United States have not ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the production, stockpiling, use, and transfer of such weapons.
“I think you find Prime Minister Sunak and President Biden on the same page strategically on Ukraine, in lockstep on the bigger picture of what we are trying to accomplish, and as united as ever,” Sullivan stated on Sunday.
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