US President Joe Biden ‘disturbed’ by Alexei Navalny’s deteriorating health in prison: Jen Psaki

During a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that President Biden is “disturbed” by reports that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s health is deteriorating in prison.

“We are disturbed by reports that Mr Navalny’s health is worsening,” Psaki said, adding that Washington considers Navalny’s imprisonment “politically motivated and a gross injustice.”

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Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on old embezzlement charges in a prison outside Moscow. 

The 44-year-old was arrested on his return to Russia in January from Germany, where he spent months recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent poisoning in August that he blames on the Kremlin.

Tensions have already been boiling between Washington and Moscow after Biden was asked if he thinks Vladimir Putin is a killer and he agreed, saying “I do”.

Meanwhile, Psaki also said the United States could consider “diplomacy” in its attempts to end the standoff with North Korea over the isolated country’s nuclear arsenal.

“We have a clear objective as it relates to North Korea, which is denuclearizing the… Korean peninsula,” the press Secretary.

ALSO READ | US, Japan, South Korea share ‘concerns’ about North Korea’s nuclear programme

“We’re of course continuing to enforce sanctions. We’re consulting with allies and partners. We are prepared to consider some form of diplomacy if it’s going to lead us down the path toward denuclearization.”

Talking about the wall across the US-Mexico border that was started by former president Donald Trump, Psaki said, “wall construction remains paused, there is a review underway taking a look at funds that have been allocated.”

However, she stressed that the Biden administration doesn’t believe that “the wall is an answer to addressing immigration challenges.”

Psaki also informed that the White House is not discussing a joint boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics with US allies over mass human rights violations and the clampdown in Hong Kong.

“We have not discussed and are not discussing any joint boycott with allies and partners,” President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said.

ALSO READ | China hits out at US over Beijing Olympics boycott row

Psaki said that Washington was talking with allies “to define our common concerns and establish a shared approach, but there’s no discussion underway of a change in our plans regarding the Beijing Olympics.”

China has been facing global scrutiny over a range of issues, notably the mass internment and repression of Uighur Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang, which the US has said amounts to genocide.

It is also under pressure for its clampdown in the former British colony of Hong Kong.