News - Middle East: US President Joe Biden says he plans to talk to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping following the shooting down of what Washington had claimed to be a Chinese “spy” balloon earlier this month, but he will “make no apologies” for the incident.

“We are not looking for a new cold war,” Biden said on Thursday in his most extensive remarks about the Chinese balloon and three unidentified objects downed by US fighter jets since February 4.

“I expect to be speaking with President Xi. I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” he added, without providing any details about the time of their potential contact.

Stressing that Washington was continuing to engage diplomatically with Beijing on the issue, Biden said the US intelligence community was still trying to learn more about the three unidentified objects; one that was shot down over Alaska, one over Canada and a third that plunged into Lake Huron.

“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests they were related to the Chinese spy balloon program or they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” Biden said.

Underlining that the intelligence community believes the objects were “most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions,” Biden said they might have been spotted due to radar that was enhanced in response to the Chinese balloon.