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First entry: Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 12:20 AM
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who on Tuesday refused to acknowledge Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election, will visit several of Washington’s allies in Europe and the Middle East, who praised Joe Biden’s electoral victory. .
Pompeo will depart Washington on Friday for France, before heading to Turkey, then Georgia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Among the issues he will discuss, he highlighted at a press conference, will be the “historic efforts” of the Trump administration “to promote peace and cooperation throughout the Middle East.”
But this tour runs the risk of turning into a major diplomatic divergence: Most of the countries where Pompeo is expected didn’t wait long before congratulating the Democratic candidate on his November 3 presidential victory.
In Paris, Emmanuel Macron congratulated Biden on Saturday as major US networks declared him the winner, and the French president spoke to him for the first time on Tuesday.
The same goes for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Similarly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been waiting until today, but also sent a congratulatory message to Joe Biden asking for “strengthening” of bilateral relations, while thanking Donald Trump for his “warm friendship “but showed his page.
Yet Mike Pompeo appears to be taking the same stance as the outgoing Republican president, who refuses to acknowledge his defeat and denounces, without providing evidence, massive “fraud” in the US elections. At the same press conference, the US Secretary of State promised that there would be a “smooth transition” of power, but to “a second Trump administration.”
During his tour, the US Secretary of State will be at the forefront of tensions between France and Turkey.
Franco-Turkish tensions stemming from disagreements over Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean have further escalated since late October.
The Trump administration, which is cultivating closeness to Ankara despite mounting criticism in the West, has not taken a clear position on the dispute.
However, the United States has its own differences with Turkey, ever since Ankara’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile system, a move that is supposed to trigger American sanctions that Mike Pompeo is slow to impose.
