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Biden has 'no intention to sit down' with Putin in Bali: White House
"He has no intention to sit down with Vladimir Putin and that's where we are today," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
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US President Joe Biden(Lleft during remarks on the implementation of the American Rescue Plan in the State Dining room of the White House in Washington, DC on March 15, 2021, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin during his working visit to Ivanovo, a town some 300 km outside Moscow, on March 6, 2020. (AFP/Eric BARADAT, Alexey NIKOLSKY )
President Joe Biden has "no intention" to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month while attending the G20 summit, the White House said Thursday.
"He has no intention to sit down with Vladimir Putin and that's where we are today," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Biden has previously said he has no plans to meet with Putin at the summit being held in Bali. It is not confirmed yet whether Putin will attend.
Putin meanwhile said on Thursday he had not yet decided whether to attend next month's G20 summit.
The Russian leader added that if he does not go to the summit, scheduled for 15-16 November, he would send a high-level Russian delegation in his place.
Earlier on Thursday, Biden expressed skepticism Putin's comment that he had no intention of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
Putin, in a speech earlier in the day, played down a nuclear standoff with the West, insisting Russia had not threatened to use nuclear weapons and had only responded to nuclear "blackmail" from Western leaders.
"If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it? Why is he talking about the ability to use a tactical nuclear weapon?" Biden said in an interview with NewsNation.
"He's been very dangerous in how he's approached this," Biden said, quoted by Reuters.
Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly said in recent weeks that Russia could use nuclear weapons to protect its territorial integrity, remarks interpreted in the West as implicit threats to use them to defend parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed.
In an interview earlier on CNN, spokesperson Kirby said it was possible Russia was considering the use of a so-called dirty bomb and was setting up a pretext to blame Ukraine. But he said the United States still had not seen any signs that was necessarily the case.
"They often blame others for that which they are doing themselves or about to do. So that's why we have to take that seriously," Kirby said of Putin's allegations.
"I'll also tell you that we're not seeing any signs, even today, that the Russians are planning to use a dirty bomb or to even make preparations for that."
