“President Emmanuel Macron has decided to return the French ambassador to Washington next week,” the White House said in a press statement after a telephone conversation between the two leaders. The diplomat, like the French ambassador from Canberra, was recalled from the Eating States last week. This was connected with the tense situation in relations with the United States after the Americans concluded the AUKUS defense agreement with Australia and Great Britain.
The White House announced, on Wednesday, in a press statement, that US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke that day by phone at the request of the American leader to discuss the situation surrounding the announcement of the new. The Tripartite Defense Agreement between Australia, the United States and Great Britain, known as AUKUS.
On this occasion, Australia suspended the contract for the purchase of conventional submarines from the Naval Group, worth 40 billion dollars, which had been negotiated with France for several months. In response to the conclusion of the agreement, France It recalled its ambassadors from Washington and CanberraAlthough it did not summon the ambassador from Great Britain.
The White House: The French ambassador will return to Washington next week
The leaders agreed that the announcement of the security agreement for the American University of Kosovo should have been preceded by “open consultations” to avoid diplomatic disagreement. In a joint statement, Biden and Macron announced that the US president estimated that Europe’s combined defense capabilities should be “much stronger.”
Biden and Macron decided to “initiate an in-depth consultation process” to rebuild trust between Washington and Paris, which was badly damaged by an incident described by the French press as the “Australian warship affair.” It was reported that the two presidents would meet at the end of October.
“President Emmanuel Macron has decided to return the French ambassador to Washington next week. He will then begin working intensively with senior US officials,” the press release said.
French anger and sacking of ambassadors
On Friday, at Macron’s request, the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced that Paris was recalling its ambassadors to the United States and Australia to consult on a tripartite agreement that cut off a Canberra trade deal known in France as the “decade of the century” and rated by Reuters at at least $40 billion. The Associated Press ranked it at $100 billion.
As part of the AUKUS agreement announced on September 15, Australia will build nuclear-powered submarines based on US and British technology.
Paris has expressed its dissatisfaction with Canberra’s termination of the contract and its omission in strategic plans related to the Indo-Pacific region, the Associated Press reported, quoting a French diplomat.
Main image source: Yuri Gribas / Pool / PAP / Environmental Protection Agency
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