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Russia Recalls its US Ambassador for Consultations after Biden Comment on Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with participants of the We Are Together nationwide volunteer campaign at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 4, 2021. (Kremlin via Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with participants of the We Are Together nationwide volunteer campaign at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 4, 2021. (Kremlin via Reuters)
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Russia Recalls its US Ambassador for Consultations after Biden Comment on Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with participants of the We Are Together nationwide volunteer campaign at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 4, 2021. (Kremlin via Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with participants of the We Are Together nationwide volunteer campaign at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 4, 2021. (Kremlin via Reuters)

Russia on Wednesday called its ambassador to the United States back to Moscow for consultations on the future of US-Russia ties after US President Joe Biden said Vladimir Putin would "pay a price" for alleged election meddling.

Biden made his comments after a US intelligence report supported longstanding allegations that Putin was behind Moscow's election interference in the United States, an accusation Russia called baseless.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had called its ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, back to Moscow to discuss the future of Russia's relationship with the United States.

The move was designed to ensure bilateral ties did not degrade irreparably, it said.

"The main thing for us is to determine the ways in which the difficult Russian-American relations that Washington has led into a dead end in recent years could be rectified," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on its website.

"We are interested in preventing their irreversible degradation if the Americans recognize the risks involved."

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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.