British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday made his maiden appearance on the international stage with a strong signal of support for Ukraine and a pat on the back from US President Joe Biden as they met on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
After a full day of meetings — interrupted briefly to watch part of the soccer match in which England triumphed over the Netherlands — Starmer met Biden at the White House, where the leaders extolled the US-British relationship.
Biden said he sees the UK as the “knot tying the transAtlantic alliance together.”
Photo: AFP
He praised Starmer for “seeking closer ties with Europe,” saying it would be good for the entire NATO alliance.
“The special relationship is so important,” said Starmer, who was elected on Thursday last week in a landslide over the Conservative Party, which had been in power since 2010.
Besides the coveted one-on-one with the US president, Starmer jumped into major meetings with congressional leaders, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — where the two men embraced — before joining other NATO leaders at a dinner at the White House.
Starmer spoke strongly on Ukraine. He reaffirmed Britain’s backing for Kyiv as it battles Russia’s invasion and said his new Labour government would “use our opportunity here with our allies to make sure that that support is agreed.”
He told Zelenskiy “there is no reduction in our support,” a video posted on Starmer’s X account showed.
The Ukrainian leader replied that his country was “very thankful for your words and steps” and for the UK being an ally since the beginning of the war.
As he arrived for the summit, Starmer said that it was important to “reinforce, in a sense as a message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, the resolve of NATO — bigger now than it’s ever been, more united than it’s ever been and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression.”
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