LONDON: US President Joe Biden arrived in London late on Sunday for the start of a three-nation tour that will include meetings with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and a discussion on climate change with King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Monday.
The White House had said the trip was designed “to further strengthen the close relationship between our nations.”
The president, who flew into Stansted airport northeast of London late on Sunday, will travel to Downing Street on Monday to hold a low-key meeting with Sunak, their fifth in as many months. Sunak’s spokesperson said the discussions would likely include the upcoming NATO summit and Ukraine.
“As we face new and unprecedented challenges to our physical and economic security, our alliances are more important than ever,” Sunak said in a statement released by his office.
“The UK is Europe’s leading NATO ally, we are the United States’ most important trade, defense and diplomatic partner, and we are at the forefront of providing Ukraine with the support they need to succeed on the battlefield,” said Sunak, who studied at California’s Stanford University and owns a penthouse flat in Santa Monica, in southern California.
Sunak has gone some way in repairing ties with Biden after the relationship cooled under his predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss due to their tough stance over a post-Brexit deal with the European Union and Johnson’s closer ties to Republican former President Donald Trump.
For Biden, the more high-profile part of the trip will be his meeting with King Charles at Windsor Castle, to the west of London, where the monarch’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth, hosted Democratic President Barack Obama in 2016 and Trump in 2018.
Biden also met Queen Elizabeth at Windsor for tea in 2021.
The king will receive Biden in the quadrangle of the castle, where a guard of honor will give a Royal Salute and the US national anthem will be played, the king’s office said.
The president and the king are due to discuss climate issues, a subject on which Charles, 74, has campaigned and spoken out about for more than five decades.
When the two men met at the COP26 UN climate summit in Scotland two years ago, Biden praised Charles’ leadership on the subject, telling him, “We need you badly.”
“You are very kind for saying that,” Charles replied.
Biden met Charles at a reception during a visit for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth last year, but in keeping with longstanding practice of US presidents, he did not attend the king’s coronation in May.
US special climate envoy John Kerry told the BBC he had been invited to brief the king and Biden about a climate finance conference that he was due to host with British energy minister Grant Shapps on Monday.
Following the meeting, Biden and Sunak will leave Britain for Lithuania where NATO leaders will gather for a key summit. Biden is then expected to travel to Helsinki for a meeting with Nordic leaders.
NATO summit
Biden will travel on to Vilnius, Lithuania, on Monday night and hold talks with NATO leaders there on Tuesday and Wednesday. Biden and the NATO allies aim to show support for Ukraine and give Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a sense of what will have to be done to gain NATO membership sometime in the future.
In a CNN interview previewing his trip, Biden urged caution for now on Ukraine’s drive to join NATO, saying the alliance could get drawn into the war with Russia due to NATO’s mutual defense pact.
“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 said.
Zelensky said an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO would send a message that the Western defense alliance is not afraid of Moscow. Ukraine should get clear security guarantees while it is not in NATO, and Zelensky said that would be one of his goals in Vilnius, in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“I’ll be there and I’ll be doing whatever I can in order to, so to speak, expedite that solution, to have an agreement with our partners,” Zelensky said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The NATO membership of Sweden, whose accession to the alliance has been blocked by both Hungary and Turkiye, will be part of the agenda in Vilnius. New members must be approved by a unanimous vote of all existing NATO members.
Biden discussed Sweden’s NATO bid on a call with Erdogan, and “conveyed his desire to welcome Sweden into NATO as soon as possible,” the White House said in a statement on Sunday.
Erdogan told Biden that Sweden must do more to contain supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which it considers a terrorist group and who continue to hold demonstrations in Sweden, Erdogan’s office said.
‘Confident alliance’
A centerpiece of Biden’s visit to Lithuania will be a speech he will deliver at Vilnius University on Wednesday night.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters the speech will cover Biden’s vision of “a strong, confident America flanked by strong, confident allies and partners taking on the significant challenges of our time, from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to the climate crisis.”
One of Biden’s objectives is to show Americans back home the importance of continuing support for Ukraine as he faces re-election. Some of his Republican rivals in the race for the November 2024 presidential election have voiced doubts about his strategy.
Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other US rivals a will to protect US interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey late last month.
Some Democratic lawmakers on Sunday raised concerns about Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. The artillery shells release dozens of bomblets that cause destruction over wide areas and unexploded ordnance can pose hazards for decades.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters on Sunday that Ukraine in written assurances said it would not use cluster bombs in Russia or in populated areas.
Biden’s last stop will be in Helsinki for talks with the leaders of the newest NATO member, Finland, and to attend a summit of US and Nordic leaders.
