Top diplomat Tillerson f ired

US President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday after a series of public rifts over policy on North Korea, Russia and Iran, replacing his chief diplomat with loyalist CIA director Mike Pompeo.

The biggest shakeup of Trump’s cabinet since he took office in January last year was announced by the president on Twitter as his administration worked toward a meeting with the leader of North Korea.

“We got along quite well, but disagreed on things,” Trump said later.

Tillerson’s dismissal capped months of friction between the Republican president and the 65-year-old former Exxon Mobil chief executive.

The tensions peaked amid reports that Tillerson had called Trump a moron and considered resigning. Tillerson never denied using the word.

Some foreign policy experts expressed dismay at the decision to swap top diplomats so soon before the unprecedented meeting and worried that Pompeo would encourage Trump to scrap the Iran nuclear deal and be hawkish on North Korea.

Critics said the move would sow more instability in the volatile Trump administration and marked the departure of another moderate who sought to emphasise the United States’ strong ties to its allies.

Trump chose the CIA’s deputy director, Gina Haspel, to replace Pompeo at the intelligence agency.

A veteran CIA clandestine officer, Haspel is backed by many in the US intelligence community but regarded warily by some in Congress for her involvement in the agency’s “black site” detention facilities. – Reuters