Pompeo dives into Nato diplomacy

BRUSSELS:Less than 24 hours after assuming his post, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo plunged Friday into Nato diplomacy as the allies sought to toughen their response to Russian interference on its periphery and elsewhere.

On his first overseas trip as America’s top diplomat, Pompeo hit the ground running with a series of meetings at Nato headquarters in Brussels aimed at underscoring the alliance’s relevance in a crisis-filled global environment that includes persistent or worsening conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. “The work that’s being done here today is invaluable and our objectives are important and this mission means a lot to the United States of America,” Pompeo told Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “The president very much wanted me to get here and I’m glad we were able to make it, and I look forward to a productive visit here today.” Pompeo’s aim is to ensure that Nato maintains a unified position of “no business as usual” with Russia until it implements an agreement to end violence in eastern Ukraine and halts destabilising actions for which it is blamed elsewhere, according to a senior US official. Those include the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain , support for Syrian PresidentBasharAssad’sgovernment that is accused of a chemical weapons attack that led Nato members UK, France and the US launch airstrikes.