Washington [US], February 11: US President Joseph Biden said today that the Chinese balloon, which this country considers to be espionage, was not a major security threat to America, the BBC reports.
Biden told the American network Telemundo that he has no regrets about the way he handled the situation with the balloon, which was first discovered over the western part of the USA, only to be shot down over the Atlantic Ocean after flying over the entire territory of this country.
Some members of the US Congress criticized Biden for not destroying the balloon sooner.
"It's not a big (security) breakthrough," Biden said, adding that it was certainly a "violation of international law."
"It's our airspace. And once it enters our space, we can do whatever we want with it," the US president added.
According to him, the US military was worried that the destruction of the facility over the continental US could endanger the population.
"Their decision was wise. They shot him over the water, they picked up most of the remains, and they're good," Biden said.
In a statement to the BBC,
"It is certain that I will not go into how the intelligence services or the Pentagon work and how they evaluate," she said.
The lower house of the US Congress, the House of Representatives, today adopted a non-binding resolution calling the flight of the Chinese balloon a "brazen violation" of US sovereignty.
China, which claims that the balloon was of the meteorological type and simply deviated from its course, rejected the assessment of the American congressmen and called it "blatant political manipulation and inflation".
"China is very dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told reporters today.
The balloon touched down in the US territory of Alaska on January 28, and was shot down last weekend off the coast of South Carolina.
Source: Beta News Agency