WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden geared up Tuesday to kick off a Nato summit in Washington aimed at showing resolve against Russia and support for Ukraine -- but the meeting was being overshadowed by his fight for political survival.
The 81-year-old leader will try to use the three days of pomp marking Nato´s 75th anniversary to reassure allies over US leadership, and his own ability to govern, as calls grow for him to quit the fight for a second term in office.
Biden has so far defied pressure from some within his party to step aside, after a disastrous TV debate against election rival Donald Trump last month fueled fears that he lacks mental acuity and physical fitness.
The US president was set to open the summit with a speech in the room where Nato´s founding treaty was signed in 1949 and expected to emphasise how the alliance has been strengthened on his watch.
Other leaders appeared keen to rally around their host, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisting as he set off from Berlin on Tuesday that he was “not concerned” by the president´s fitness.
But as doubts swirl over Biden, the 32-nation alliance is nervously eyeing a potential return to the White House by Trump after elections in November.
On the campaign trail, the volatile ex-reality TV star has threatened to blow apart the principle of mutual self-defence that has underpinned Nato since it was founded in the wake of World War II.
It´s not just the United States, however, that faces political questions.
French President Emmanuel Macron is struggling to form a government after divisive elections, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer makes his first international outing, and Hungary´s premier Viktor Orban flies in after a much-criticized meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
While they wrestle with the minefield of US politics, Nato leaders will have to show they haven´t been distracted from the reality of the battlefield in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived on Tuesday expecting to secure additional Patriot advanced air defense systems that he has been begging his backers to send for months to stave off Russian attacks.
His war-torn country´s vulnerability to Moscow´s missiles was cruelly exposed by a strike Monday on a children´s hospital in Kyiv.
“We are fighting for more air defense systems for Ukraine, and I´m confident we will succeed,” Zelensky said after touching down in Washington.
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