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.”
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS