During his trip, Mike Pompeo is expected to discuss the increased pressure on Iran.
Washington:
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday announced a tour of seven countries of US allies, who congratulated President-elect Joe Biden despite Donald Trump’s refusal to give in.
Pompeo said he would leave for Paris on Friday, then travel to Istanbul and the former Soviet republic of Georgia before visiting Jerusalem and three main Gulf Arab allies – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
The trip will discuss “Trump’s historic efforts to forge peace and cooperation across the Middle East,” Pompeo told reporters.
The trip will likely be inconvenient as Trump has denied losing last week’s election and his administration has refused to begin the transition to Biden, which will begin on January 20.
France, which like many European countries had strained relations with Trump, quickly expressed the hope of working with Biden, who shares French priorities in the fight against climate change, cooperation against the Covid-19 pandemic and diplomacy with Iran.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – all friends of Trump – also congratulated Biden.
The Democrat pledged to give higher priority to human rights and democracy, calling for a reassessment of relations with Saudi Arabia and support for Turkey’s opposition.
During his trip, Pompeo is expected to discuss the increased pressure on Iran over the remaining two months of the Trump administration, which in 2018 escaped a multinational denuclearization deal with Tehran and imposed punitive unilateral sanctions.
Israel and the Gulf Arabs have seen their relations grow as they share the Trump administration’s hostility towards Iran.
In September, the UAE and Bahrain said they would recognize the Jewish state, and Trump had urged Saudi Arabia to follow suit. Sudan has also said it will normalize relations with Israel.
While Pompeo has been a frequent visitor to the Middle East, this will be his first solo trip to Paris; his only other trip was when he joined Trump for the 2018 ceremony marking the centenary of the end of World War I.
Pompeo mocked the last Democratic Secretary of State, John Kerry, for his frequent trips to Paris, telling a conservative group earlier this year that he was not interested in “fancy dinners” and ” cocktails ”.
Pompeo will also be the first Secretary of State from Kerry to visit Georgia.
Like the United States, Georgia recently held elections that were contested, with the opposition claiming the vote was rigged and staging protests.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
