DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware: US President Joe Biden departed on Sunday (Jul 9) on a three-nation trip that will be dominated by a NATO summit in Lithuania aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine in its fight against Russia while not yet accepting Kyiv as a member of the alliance.
Biden’s first stop will be in London, where he will meet British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street on Monday and then travel to Windsor Castle for a visit with King Charles.
The talks with the king, expected to include climate initiatives, will give Biden a greater sense of the man who succeeded his mother, Queen Elizabeth, who died last September.
Biden had tea with the queen at Windsor in June 2021 and they discussed many of the same issues that remain a top priority today, like Russia and China.
Biden will travel on to Vilnius, Lithuania, on Monday night and hold talks with NATO leaders there on Tuesday and Wednesday. Biden and the allies aim to show support for Ukraine and give Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a sense of what he will have to do to gain NATO membership at some point 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 defence 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.
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