Joe Biden: Russia war a 'genocide,' trying to 'wipe out' Ukraine
Des Moines (US)(AP): President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Russia's war in Ukraine "amounted to genocide," accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."
"Yes, I called it genocide," he told reporters in Iowa shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington."It's become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."
At an earlier event in Menlo, Iowa, addressing spiking energy prices resulting from the war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine, but offered no details. Neither he nor his administration announced new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine following Biden's public assessment.
Biden's comments drew praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had encouraged Western leaders to use the term to describe Russia's invasion of his country.
True words of a true leader @POTUS," he tweeted. "Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil. We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities.
Biden said it would be up to lawyers to decide if Russia's conduct met the international standard for genocide, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, but said "it sure seems that way to me.
"More evidence is coming out literally of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we're only going to learn more and more about the devastation and let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies," he said.
Just last week Biden had he did not believe Russia's actions amounted to genocide, just that they constituted "war crimes."
During a trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-word statement seemingly supporting regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country. For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden said.
He clarified the comments days later, saying: I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man. I wasn't articulating a policy change.
Past American leaders often have dodged formally declaring bloody campaigns such as Russia's in Ukraine as genocide, hesitating to trigger an obligation under an international genocide convention that requires signing countries to intervene once genocide is formally identified.
That obligation was seen as blocking President Bill Clinton from declaring Rwandan Hutus' killing of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994 as genocide, for example.
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TMC MLA Humayun Kabir apologises for claiming 'coterie' influencing Mamata's decisions
Kolkata (PTI): Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir has apologised to the party's leadership for his recent comment that a "coterie" was influencing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's key decisions.
Kabir, the MLA of Bharatpur in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, expressed his apology on Friday in reply to a show cause notice issued by the party's disciplinary committee.
"Yes, I have sent a reply. I will certainly follow party discipline. But I think being a person from the rural belt, not conversant with the ways of the city, I faced this situation for speaking my mind. However, I had not said anything against my party or its leadership," he told reporters.
"Our CM epitomises the spirit of 'Maa-Mati-Manush' and being a person of the grassroots level, I always stay rooted to the ground. Maybe I should have been more careful about my way of expressing," he said.
A senior member of the TMC's legislative disciplinary committee said the reply to the show cause letter was received, and a decision on it will be communicated soon.
Kabir, however, said some other TMC MPs had on earlier occasions made comments against party colleagues but were not censured.
On Thursday, he met the CM in the assembly's lobby where she had asked him to reply to the show-cause notice first.
On November 26, Kabir had said a coterie within the party was taking certain decisions to cement their position and was influencing the CM's key decisions for their short-term gains.
He had said this a day after the TMC national executive meeting where the party had categorically asked its leaders not to make comments in public against any internal decision and formed disciplinary committees at different levels.
Kabir had earlier advocated for giving more responsibility to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, reiterating that the Diamond Harbour MP was undoubtedly the number two in the party's hierarchy and those trying to undermine his influence would not succeed.
