Pompeo cancels Europe trip after EU ‘snub’
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a trip to Europe this week and will remain in Washington to complete “a smooth and orderly transition” of power to the administration of presidentelect Joe Biden.
The State Department announced on Tuesday that all travel would be cancelled, including Mr Pompeo’s trip to Brussels, where he was to meet Nato officials.
“We are expecting shortly a plan from the incoming administration identifying the career officials who will remain in positions of responsibility on an acting basis until the Senate confirmation process is complete for incoming officials,” the department said.
But Reuters reported that EU officials said they would not meet Mr Pompeo.
“Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister [ Jean Asselborn] and top EU officials declined to meet him,” Reuters reported, quoting European diplomats.
Mr Pompeo was also scheduled to meet Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister, Sophie Wilmes.
Mr Pompeo is a close ally of US President Donald Trump. After the Capitol riot last week Mr Pompeo praised the departing president on Twitter and listed the administration’s accomplishments.
He said US sanctions on Iran took more than two million barrels of oil from the country off the market, and praised the decision to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Mr Pompeo also said the Trump administration negotiated the release of two Americans detained in Iran.
This month, Vice President Mike Pence cancelled a trip to Europe, Bahrain and Israel, which was scheduled for this week.
Mr Pence’s office attributed the change of plans to the increase in coronavirus cases in the US.