Turkey, the second stop in Pompeo without official meetings
After spending the weekend in private with his wife Susan in Paris on what appears to be a farewell tour, Mike Pompeo paid tribute on Monday morning to the victims of the recent attacks in France by placing a wreath in front of a dedicated statue in the gardens of the Hôtel national des Invalides.
While Donald Trump continued to challenge the result of the US elections, President Macron, who already has his sights set on Joe Biden, whose transatlantic relationship he hopes will be rebuilt, received Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who began a diplomatic tour yesterday in Paris, which will take him to Turkey, Georgia, Israel and then the Gulf.
The French President met the Secretary of State at the Elysée Palace at the end of the morning, away from the cameras and microphones. And later with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, a meeting that lasted about 45 minutes, according to a French diplomatic source.
A somewhat acrobatic exercise for the French leader Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who received the high-ranking American official and pointed out that the visit had been organised at his request. "It was normal and respectful of the American institutions for him to be received," a French diplomatic source told the AFP, as Donald Trump's mandate lasts until 20 January.
The French president met the US secretary of state at the Elysée Palace at the end of the morning, away from the cameras and microphones. He then joined Pompeo and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, who had previously met for 45 minutes, according to a French diplomatic source.
The politician stressed that he had received Mike Pompeo at his request, "with complete transparency" with Joe Biden's team, on the same day that Paris and Berlin were jointly calling for the reconstruction of the transatlantic relationship on the occasion of the change of US administration; just before taking off for Turkey, where he is not scheduled to have meetings with the politicians of that country, before continuing his tour of the Middle East.
Unlike in France, the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not meet with Pompeo. The office of the secretary explains that this is because Turkish officials are not allowed to travel from Ankara to Istanbul during the time Pompeo will be in the latter city. Moreover, the US State Department officials added that Pompeo plans to meet with its Turkish counterpart at the beginning of December at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
Mike Pompeo also stressed, as did his interlocutors, the need for transatlantic "unity", which was often abused during the Trump era. At the same time, France and Germany invited Joe Biden to strengthen this same transatlantic unity, including on the Iranian nuclear issue and with respect to NATO member Turkey.
However, this is happening after the tensions between the United States and Turkey. In fact, in Paris, Pompeo in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro said that both Macron and he were "in agreement that Turkey's recent actions have been very aggressive", referring to Ankara's support for Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Europe and the United States must work together to convince Erdogan that such actions are not in the interest of his people", he said hours before flying to Istanbul, asking "Europe and the United States to work together to convince Erdogan that such actions are not in the interest of his people".
Although there will be no official meetings, it is planned that the secretary of state will focus on promoting religious freedom, specifically during his meetings with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, considered the "first among equals" in the Orthodox world; and with the apostolic nuncio in Turkey, Archbishop Paul Russell.
