WASHINGTON, Oct 9 - United States President Joe Biden postponed indefinitely his planned official visits to Germany and Angola from Oct. 11-15 in light of the approaching Hurricane Milton, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Tuesday. Foreign Minister Antony Blinken will also cancel his upcoming visits to Germany and Angola.
"Given the projected trajectory and strength of Hurricane Milton, President Biden is postponing his upcoming trip to Germany and Angola to oversee preparations and response to Hurricane Milton, in addition to the ongoing response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast," the statement said.
"U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as U.S. President Joe Biden, will cancel their upcoming visits to Germany and Angola due to the approach of Hurricane Milton," a U.S. State Department spokesman told reporters Matthew Miller.
"Given the projected trajectory and strength of Hurricane Milton, President Biden is postponing his upcoming trip to Germany and Angola to oversee preparations and response to Hurricane Milton, in addition to the ongoing response and impacts of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast," he said.
According to Miller, Blinken "had planned to join the president in Germany and Angola, but because of this postponement, he now expects to return home to Washington from Laos."
Blinken was due to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit and the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Laos.
At the end of this week, Biden was scheduled to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the Middle East with his Western counterparts. Representatives from Britain, Germany, the United States and France were due to meet in Berlin on 12 October ahead of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates Western military aid to Ukraine. The four leaders were due to leave Berlin for the Ramstein military base where the group was to meet.
Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall in the sparsely populated Big Bend area of Florida on September 25. Shortly afterwards, it weakened to a Category 1 and then to a tropical storm.
On October 1, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security announced Alejandro Mayorkasthat the recovery process from Hurricane Helene will take years and be very costly. On 2 October, CNN reported that the death toll from Hurricane Helene had reached 162. Moody's Analytics estimates the damage caused by the disaster at approximately USD 34 billion.
TASS/ gnews - RoZ
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