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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the Czech Republic initially of a four-nation tour of central and japanese Europe anticipated to concentrate on threats to the area posed by Russia and China.
Amid post-election violence and considerations about important democratic backsliding in close by Belarus, Pompeo plans to make use of his go to to push his hosts to counter Russian and Chinese affect. Russia and China are lively and in search of larger roles all through the continent in the power, infrastructure and telecommunications sectors, a pattern the United States is eager to reverse.
Pompeo on Tuesday was opening his go to in the Czech metropolis of Pilsen, the place he was to go to the Patton Museum and memorial to the World War II liberation of western Czechoslovakia by U.S. troops.
In his talks, Pompeo will possible face questions in regards to the Trump administration’s choice to cut back the U.S. navy presence in Germany. President Donald Trump needs to withdraw hundreds of American troops from bases in Germany and redeploy a few of them eastward, together with to neighboring Poland, the final cease on Pompeo’s week-long journey.
Two of Pompeo’s different three locations — the Czech Republic and Austria — additionally share a border with Germany, whereas Slovakia borders Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. Germany is pointedly not on Pompeo’s itinerary.
In Prague on Wednesday, Pompeo will meet Czech President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis to debate nuclear power cooperation and “efforts to counter malign actions of Russia and communist China,” the State Department stated.
Energy and the tenuous political scenario in the Balkans will high Pompeo’s agenda with Slovenian officers in Ljubljana, the place he’s anticipated to ship an announcement with the overseas minister in regards to the safety of 5G networks, the division stated.
In Vienna, Pompeo will meet Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to assessment commerce relations and regional safety. Pompeo may also maintain talks with the top of the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with monitoring Iran’s adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal from which the U.S. has withdrawn.
The Trump administration is attempting to persuade different members of the U.N. Security Council to indefinitely lengthen an arms embargo on Iran that is because of expire in October, underneath phrases of the nuclear deal.
In Warsaw, Poland, Pompeo plans talks with President Andrzej Duda, who lately gained a slender reelection after a bitter marketing campaign that involved human rights advocates and others.
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