Pompeo to Mideast fresh off confirmation as secretary of state
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration’s new secretary of state wasted no time on Thursday, traveling from his swearing-in ceremony at the US Supreme Court directly to a State Department plane headed to Europe and the Middle East.
Mike Pompeo’s inaugural trip as top diplomat will take him to Brussels, Riyadh, Jerusalem and Amman, “where [after attending NATO’s foreign ministerial summit] he will meet with Saudi, Israeli and Jordanian leaders to discuss critical regional and bilateral issues,” a State Department spokesman said.
Pompeo has “no plans at this time” to meet with Palestinian leadership while in the region, a Trump administration official told The Jerusalem Post.
Pompeo is expected to engage his European and Mideast counterparts in a critical round of diplomacy over the Iran nuclear deal, which US President Donald Trump has threatened to rip apart in two short weeks absent vows from Britain, France and Germany to “fix” the accord.
France has agreed to negotiate toward a more “comprehensive” agreement on Iran addressing its long-term nuclear work, ballistic missile program and regional military activity, but in any case plans to adhere to the 2015 nuclear accord, which Paris says accomplishes the deal’s stated goal of capping Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure for a short period.