Biden pledges to lay down ‘red lines’ in summit with Putin

BRUSSELS: US President Joe Biden on Monday signalled his determination to take a firm stance two days ahead of meeting his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, vowing to lay down “red lines”.

Speaking after a summit of the 30 NATO leaders, and insisting he has their full support in meeting the Kremlin chief, Biden acknowledged that he faces a tough opponent in Geneva on Wednesday.

“He´s bright, he´s tough, and I have found that he is, as they say, a worthy adversary,” he said.“I´m not looking for conflict with Russia, but that we will respond if Russia continues its harmful activities.”

Where Washington and Moscow do not agree, he “will make it clear what the red lines are,” he said.One of these was “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.

Biden vowed that, faced with “aggressive action” from Russia, “we´re going to put Ukraine in a position to maintain their physical security.” But, despite pressure from Ukraine´s President Volodymyr Zelensky to use the moment to push for Kiev´s admission to NATO, Biden warned that remained conditional on Ukraine adopting democratic reforms and fighting corruption.

US President Joe Biden warned Monday that Nato must adapt to new challenges posed by China and Russia as he met fellow leaders to renew Washington´s “sacred” bond with its allies.Arriving at Nato headquarters in Brussels for a summit with his 29 counterparts, Biden stressed that the alliance was “critically important” to US security.

His first visit as president to the summit has been billed as a renewal of bonds after his predecessor Donald Trump called the US commitment into question. But it is also a moment to renew priorities and strategies for dealing with Moscow and Beijing, novel threats, and Nato´s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan after years of conflict.

“I think that there is a growing recognition over the last couple of years that we have new challenges,” Biden told Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at bilateral talks ahead of the main summit. “We have Russia that is not acting in a way that is consistent with what we had hoped, as well as China,” he said. “I want to make it clear: NATO is critically important for US interests in and of itself. If there weren´t one, we´d have to invent it,” he said.

And he stressed once again that Article 5 of the Nato treaty — the obligation of members to defend one another, once called into question by Trump — was a “sacred obligation”.

The allies were due to agree a statement stressing common ground on securing their withdrawal from Afghanistan, joint responses to cyber attacks and the challenge of a rising China. “We´re not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy,” Stoltenberg told reporters as he arrived at Nato headquarters ahead of the leaders.“But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security.”

Looming large at the summit is also the scramble to complete Nato´s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan after Biden surprised partners by ordering US troops home by September 11.

France´s President Emmanuel Macron met one-on-one with his Turkish counterpart and fellow ally Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of the summit, and Biden was due to meet him later.

On the table will be Ankara´s offer to secure Kabul airport after Nato troops leave — but also concerns in other capitals about Turkey´s own aggressive regional policy.

In contrast to Trump, Biden has firmly reasserted American backing for the 72-year-old military alliance — and his administration has been making a show of consulting more with partners. “I welcome the fact that we have a president of the United States who is strongly committed to Nato, to North America and Europe, working together in Nato,” Stoltenberg said.But there remain divisions among the allies on some key issues — including how to deal with China´s rise and how to increase common funding.

Partners are concerned about the rush to leave Afghanistan and some question the strategy of an alliance that Macron warned in 2019 was undergoing “brain death”.Other leaders arriving for the talks dismissed this phrase, but European leaders stressed that they did not want to be drawn into a US confrontation with China at the cost of focusing on Russia.

The summit at Nato´s cavernous Brussels headquarters is set to greenlight a 2030 reform programme. The leaders will agree to rewrite the core “strategic concept” to face a world where cyber attacks, climate change, and new technologies pose new threats.Moscow´s 2014 seizure of Crimea gave renewed purpose to Nato and fellow leaders will be keen to sound Biden out ahead of his Wednesday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On China, Biden is picking up from where Trump left off by getting Nato to start paying attention to Beijing and is pushing for the alliance to take a tougher line.

But National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, briefing reporters from Air Force One, played down how big a part this would play in the statement. “The language is not going to be inflammatory,” he said.

As Nato looks to the future, it is putting one of its most significant chapters behind it by ending two decades of military involvement in Afghanistan.

Allies are patching together plans to try to avert a collapse of Afghan forces when they leave and figuring out how to provide enough security for Western embassies to keep working.Ankara has offered to secure the airport, but insists it would need American support.

Biden discussed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an offer from Ankara to keep troops in the country to secure Kabul airport — provided the US gave support. Erdogan announced no firm deal on the issue — or any progress on the thorny dispute over Turkey´s purchase of Russia´s S-400 missile system. But he insisted that he had held “fruitful and sincere” talks with his US counterpart.The final NATO summit statement did not mention Turkey´s role at the airport, but did stress that the alliance would continue to pay to keep the facility open.