All roads lead to Cornwall
Joe Biden and Boris Johnson sign key document ahead of G7 summit starting today in Carbis Bay
CARBIS BAY, UK: The leaders of the US and Britain have vowed to defend their countries’ “enduring values” against challenges old and new in a far-reaching document set out ahead of a Group of Seven summit in Carbis Bay, England.
US President Joe Biden met with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday in the English seaside resort of Carbis Bay ahead of a Friday-to-Sunday G7 summit, a NATO summit on Monday, a summit of the US and the EU on Tuesday, and a much awaited meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva the following day.
Biden and Johnson, who met for more than an hour, signed a document “building on the commitments and aspirations set out 80 years go” by predecessors Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in the Atlantic Charter.
That document led to the United Nations and NATO. The new one looks to the challenge posed by countries like China and Russia with its promises to promote free trade, human rights and a rules-based international order, and to counter “those who seek to undermine our alliances and institutions”.
The new charter also took aim at “interference through disinformation” in elections and murky economic practices, charges that the West has levelled at Moscow and Beijing.
Britain later said it agreed to a partnership with the US to tackle new pandemics by bolstering disease surveillance and genomic sequencing worldwide, according to British health minister Matt Hancock.
The two leaders promised to build stronger global defences against health threats, ahead of a summit dominated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Also, Biden brought a grave Brexit warning to his first meeting with Johnson - prevent a row with the European Union from imperilling the delicate peace in Northern Ireland.
As the two leaders met in Carbis Bay, they appeared relaxed as they admired the view across the turquoise waters of the Atlantic with the US first lady, who wore a jacket embroidered with the word “love”, and Johnson’s new wife, Carrie, who wore a red dress.
Earlier, police arrested a man for a bomb hoax near the media centre in Falmouth, set up to cover the G7 summit. Cops evacuated a hotel there in response to reports of a suspicious package on Thursday morning.