Citing 'pressing issues', Pompeo ditches his meeting with Merkel and Maas

RT
Tue, 07 May 2019 09:31 UTC

© Israel National News

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has scrapped plans for a Tuesday meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas citing unspecified "pressing issues."

"Unfortunately, we must reschedule the Berlin meetings due to pressing issues. We look forward to rescheduling this important set of meetings. The Secretary looks forward to being in Berlin soon," the US Embassy cited a State Department spokesperson as saying.

Neither Merkel's nor Mass's office have issued a formal statement on the last-minute cancellation yet.

Pompeo attended a meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland where he discussed regional development, "Russian military expansion" and "Chinese investment" among other topics during an address in which he described the Arctic as "an arena of global power & competition."

Comment: More on Pompeo's cancelation from New York Times:

Mr. Pompeo had been set to meet with Ms. Merkel and Heiko Maas, the foreign minister, to discuss Ukraine, Russia, China, Syria, the Western Balkans and other issues of mutual interest, according to a schedule released by the State Department last week.

Berlin also took it as a snub when Mr. Pompeo did not attend an annual foreign policy conference in Munich this year, although he was traveling through Central and Eastern Europe at the time.

He had been scheduled to travel to Berlin on Tuesday before continuing on to London on Wednesday to meet with Prime Minister Theresa May and to deliver a speech on the United States' relationship with Britain. Mr. Pompeo was then to travel to Greenland on Thursday to meet with leaders there.

[O]bservers held up the decision as further proof of the deterioration of German-American relations in recent years.

See also: Pompeo abruptly cancels meeting with Merkel amid Nord Stream 2 row