The presidents of the United States and Ukraine, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky, will meet next Thursday at the White House to, among other things, discuss Washington’s further support for Kiev, said Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to the US president on Friday. He also announced that Biden would meet in New York with the leaders of Central Asian countries, Brazil and Israel.
Sullivan announced Biden and Zelensky will meet during a White House briefing on the US president’s activities next week during high-level meetings at the 78th session of the UN General embly in New York. Although both presidents will speak at the UN headquarters, they will meet on Thursday in Washington.
“This will be their third meeting here at the White House, and it comes at a critical time when Russia is desperately seeking help from countries like North Korea to meet the needs of its brutal war,” a Biden adviser said.
He added that the US president will discuss with his Ukrainian counterpart the progress of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the issue of arms supplies, and will also reiterate his continued support for Ukraine. Sullivan also said he expects Zelensky to meet with politicians from both parties in Congress, which is scheduled to debate the White House’s request for another additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine. According to Sullivan, consultations with congressmen show that there is still significant bipartisan consensus on continuing to support Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia.
Discussing Biden’s plans in New York, the presidential adviser announced that he would meet with the leaders of Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – as part of the first-ever C5+1 leaders’ summit. In addition, the US president will meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he is to talk about the initiative to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia and stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Traditionally, it will also host leaders participating in the UN General embly.
When asked about the meeting of the leaders of Russia and North Korea in Vladivostok, Sullivan stated that he does not believe the claims of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un that no agreement has yet been reached on the supply of North Korean weapons to Moscow. He added that although there is no information about a specific arrangement between the regimes, “talks about North Korea supplying weapons to Russia so that it can kill Ukrainians are still progressing.”
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
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