Blitz Bureau
US President Joe Biden met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House on September 13. During the meeting, Biden dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats regarding the escalation of war. President Biden reportedly said that he did not accept that Ukraine using Western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to NATO going to war with Moscow. He said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”
The talks between Biden and Starmer along with their foreign policy teams were conducted in the Blue Room in the White House.
Also present in the meeting were Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, and David Lammy, the UK Foreign Secretary, National Security Adviser Tim Barrow and Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray.
Productive talks
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Starmer did not signal any decision on allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to hit Russian targets. Asked if he persuaded Biden to allow Storm Shadow to be used in Russia, the British Premier said, they had “a long and productive discussion on a number of fronts, including Ukraine, as you would expect, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific,” BBC reported.
Starmer flew over from London on September 12 for the working meeting amid escalating tensions with the Kremlin after the UK had indicated that the US had agreed to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to bomb Russia, according to The Guardian.
Accreditation revoked
The meeting between Biden and Starmer came at a time when Russia revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage. Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on September 13 that the British foreign office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.
The UK denied the allegations and called them baseless. “The accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless … We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests,” the British foreign office spokesperson told the reporters.
Meanwhile, the White House expressed “deep concern about Iran and North Korea’s provision of lethal weapons to Russia”. However, it did not mention whether the matter was discussed during the meeting or not.
