U.S. President Joe Biden said relations with the U.K are \u201crock solid\u201d as he visited 10 Downing Street in London to meet with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of Tuesday\u2019s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve got a lot to talk about. I think we\u2019re doing well. We\u2019re moving along in a way that\u2019s positive,\u201d said Biden.<\/p>\n
“Great for us to carry on our conversations, which we were having just a month or so ago, it feels like, in the White House, where we signed the Atlantic Declaration,\u201d said Sunak, referring to the June agreement to cooperate on advanced technologies, clean energy, and critical minerals to counter China\u2019s clout around the world.<\/p>\n
Biden administration officials underscore that this is the leaders\u2019 sixth visit in six months. However, the meeting is overshadowed by Washington\u2019s recent announcement that it will send cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite the bombs being banned by 123 nations, including Britain, for their indiscriminate killing capability.<\/p>\n
Sunak has not publicly backed the move, noting on Saturday that the U.K. is a \u201csignatory to a convention which prohibits the production or use of cluster munitions and discourages their use.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to do our part to support Ukraine against Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion, but we’ve done that by providing heavy battle tanks and most recently long-range weapons, and hopefully all countries can continue to support Ukraine,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n
Sunak was fulfilling \u201chis legal obligation\u201d under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.<\/p>\n
He pushed back against the notion that the decision to send cluster munitions is creating division with the alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you will find Prime Minister Sunak and President Biden on the same page strategically on Ukraine, in lockstep on the bigger picture of what we\u2019re trying to accomplish, and as united as ever both in this conflict and writ large,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Security guarantees for Kyiv <\/p>\n
Biden and Sunak are also focused on finding the right formula to provide long-term security guarantees for Kyiv outside of the NATO framework as Kyiv moves toward membership. Biden has said he does not believe Ukraine is ready to join the alliance, citing needed reforms and the danger of dragging NATO into a direct conflict with Russia.<\/p>\n
Sunak meanwhile appeared to be more forward leaning on membership for Ukraine, partly because he knows where Biden stands, said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, a London-based research group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not that there isn’t integrity to what Britain’s doing, but there is protection,\u201d she told VOA. \u201cYou can say everything you want to say about offering membership to NATO to Ukraine more quickly but you know that you have the U.S. there who is going to ensure that certain conditions are met first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reviewing preparations for the Vilnius summit, Biden and Sunak \u201creaffirmed their steadfast support for Ukraine in the face of Russia\u2019s ongoing aggression.<\/p>\n
Later Monday, Biden headed to Vilnius for the two-day gathering with allied leaders that will focus on Ukraine, as well as strengthening and enlarging the alliance.<\/p>\n
NATO leaders are meeting amid potential instability in Russia following an attempted mutiny by Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. His troops have been invited to set up camp in Belarus, which shares a border with Lithuania.<\/p>\n
Monarch meeting on climate <\/p>\n
Following his meeting with Sunak, Biden headed to Windsor Castle to meet with King Charles, to discuss boosting private investment for developing nations to combat climate change. Biden did not attend the monarch\u2019s coronation in May.<\/p>\n
British Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Grant Shapps, Biden’s special climate envoy John Kerry, as well as top financiers and philanthropists attended the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey represent literally trillions of dollars either investment or assets under management or assets owned, and they are making decisions every single day about how to accelerate this transition,\u201d Kerry said.<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland <\/p>\n
Biden and Sunak also reviewed developments in Northern Ireland, where tensions remain over post-Brexit trade rules that have torn apart the region\u2019s unity government.<\/p>\n
In April, Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, traveled to Belfast to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord.<\/p>\n
During a campaign fundraising event in May, Biden\u2019s blunt comments triggered criticism from some British politicians. Biden said he traveled to Northern Ireland \u201cto make sure the Brits didn\u2019t screw around\u201d with the region\u2019s peace process and \u201cNorthern Ireland didn\u2019t walk away from their commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. President Joe Biden said relations with the U.K are \u201crock solid\u201d as he visited 10 Downing Street in London to meet with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of Tuesday\u2019s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. “We\u2019ve got a lot to talk about. I think we\u2019re doing well. We\u2019re moving along in a way that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":11198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}