President Joe Biden has said he makes no apologies for shooting down an alleged Chinese spy balloon off the coast of the US.
He said the balloon was used for surveillance, but three other objects shot down over North America were unlikely to be foreign spy craft.
The US would now improve its detection of similar aerial objects, he said.
Mr Biden also said he would speak with China’s President Xi Jinping soon about this month’s incident.
China has denied the balloon was used for surveillance, instead saying it blew off course while collecting weather data.
But Mr Biden reiterated the view of US officials that the balloon, which traversed the country at an altitude of about 40,000ft (12,000m) before being blown out of the sky by a US fighter jet over the Atlantic, was in fact used for spying.
He said the US was continuing to speak with China on the issue. “We are not looking for a new cold war,” Mr Biden said.
Speaking about three other objects subsequently shot down over Alaska, north-west Canada and Lake Huron on the US-Canada border, Mr Biden said the intelligence community believed they were “most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions”.
The president said enhanced radar introduced in response to the Chinese balloon might explain the discovery of the three objects.
“That’s why I’ve directed my team to come back to me with sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects moving forward, distinguishing between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not.”
Mr Biden’s comments came after the White House felt the need to dispel suggestions the three objects were of extra-terrestrial origin.
Officials said the slow-moving unidentified objects did not pose “any direct threat to people on the ground” and were destroyed “to protect our security, our interests and flight safety”.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which was co-ordinating searches for the objects in Canada, said on Thursday it would suspend the search of Lake Huron, in part due to the low probability of recovery.
On whether he would take similar action again, Mr Biden said: “Make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people I will take it down.”
He declined to say when he planned to speak with China’s President Xi as he was asked during an interview with NBC News.
“I think the last thing that Xi wants is to fundamentally rip the relationship with the United States and with me,” Biden told the broadcaster.
China has repeated its explanation for the balloon shot down on 4 February, with a spokesman telling reporters the US should try to avoid “misunderstandings and misjudgements”.
Amid the heightened tensions over US skies, military officials said on Thursday that American warplanes had intercepted Russian jets flying near Alaska for a second time this week.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), which is jointly run by the US and Canada, said in a statement that it was a “routine” contact with the Russians.
BBC
