Tag: Mike Pompeo

Remember Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan?

Appearing in front of a congressional committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked a simple question: When is the United States going to unveil the long-awaited Israel-Palestinian peace plan being crafted by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner?

“I think we can say in less than 20 years,” America’s top diplomat said, laughing. “I prefer not to be more precise.”

The remark was intended in jest, but it highlighted an unfortunate fact: The Trump administration’s peace plan has already been a long time coming, and few details have been revealed. Pompeo was smiling, but those hoping the plan may be the solution to one of the Middle East’s most intractable problems fear they may be waiting not for Kushner, but for Godot.

View the complete March 28 article by Adam Taylor on The Washington Post website here.

It’s Jamal Khashoggi all over again with Trump and Otto Warmbier

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified March 27, answering questions from Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) about the death of U.S. student Otto Warmbier. (C-Span)

Pompeo has now repeatedly declined to blame Kim Jong Un personally for human rights abuses

When the president you serve speaks glowingly about strongmen, it makes your job as his chief diplomat more difficult. Yes, sometimes you have to deal with such leaders, but you also need to avoid legitimizing them. You may be on the verge of cutting a deal, but does that mean you give the autocrat a pass on humanitarian abuses — even ones directly involving the United States?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been through this already with Jamal Khashoggi. Now he’s going through it with Otto Warmbier.

And on Wednesday, he got testy over it.

View the complete March 27 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

‘Inappropriate and irresponsible’: State Department draws criticism by refusing to provide transcript of Pompeo’s call with ‘faith-based media’

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a secret conference call on Monday and invited only “faith-based” media outlets. All mainstream media outlets were banned. Even reporters whose “beat” is religion were barred from the call. One reporter from a non-faith-based media outlet was accidentally invited, then disinvited when the error was discovered.

Outrage and concern have been growing since CNN Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Michelle Kosinski, who covers the State Department, first reported the unusual secretive conference call was being held.

Criticism has grown after the State Dept. refused to release a list of media outlets invited and on the call, and refused to release a transcript, all of which are standard operating procedure.

View the complete March 19 article by David Badash with The New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

Is a War With Iran on the Horizon?

The Trump Administration Is Reckless Enough to Turn the Cold War With Iran Into a Hot One

Here’s the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran? Could military actions designed to be limited — say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf — trigger a wider war?

Worryingly, the answers are: yes and yes. Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen. Continue reading “Is a War With Iran on the Horizon?”

Pompeo stresses importance of U.S. friends, a day after Pence blasted key allies

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, on Feb. 15 in Brussels. (Reuters)

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday talked up the importance of friends and allies as he visited two European capitals one day after Vice President Pence harshly criticized allies he said are helping Iran evade sanctions.

“No more will we take our friends, our true allies, our partners for granted,” he told reporters after noting he was the first secretary of state to visit in a decade and saying Iceland, like the Eastern European countries he visited on this trip, had done exactly that. “We simply can’t afford to neglect them.”

Pompeo stopped in Iceland while returning home from Warsaw, where the United States co-hosted a Middle East peace and security conference that was focused largely on what the administration considers the malign influence of Iran.

View the complete February 15 article by Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.

Pompeo’s North Korea Envoy Can’t Get Face Time With Counterparts

Mike Pompeo Credit: Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg

More than three months after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo picked Stephen Biegun to lead negotiations with North Korea, the former Ford Motor Co. executive has barely met officials from Pyongyang face-to-face.

The standstill is a sign of how negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea have faltered, forcing a lowering of expectations, since President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June. Biegun was appointed in August to help follow up on the opening created by the summit, but North Korean officials have ignored Pompeo’s invitation in September to meet with Biegun “at the earliest opportunity.”

Kim’s regime may feel emboldened to spurn the usual channels of diplomacy because Trump has emphasized his personal rapport with the autocratic leader and his interest in holding a second summit soon, according to current and former administration officials.

View the complete December 6 article by Nick Wadhams on the Bloomberg News website here.

U.S. reduces refugee ceiling to 30,000 for 2019

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday that the U.S. will limit refugee admission to 30,000 in 2019, down from 45,000 in 2018. When Trump took office, the refugee cap stood at 110,000.

The big picture: It’s the smallest cap placed on the refugee program since it was created in 1980.

View the complete September 17 post on the Axios.com website here.

Trump calls off high-level North Korea visit by Pompeo

The following article by Jordan Fabian and Ellen Mitchell was posted on the Hill website August 24, 2018:

President Trump on Friday said he has asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to put off his planned visit to North Korea and accused Pyongyang of slow-walking efforts to dismantle its nuclear program.

Trump wrote in a tweet that a high-level visit is not appropriate at “this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Pompeo was scheduled to make his fourth visit to North Korea next week to follow up on a framework agreement Trump reached with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

View the complete article here.

North Korea calls U.S. attitude toward talks ‘gangster-like’ and ‘cancerous,’ rejecting Pompeo’s assessment

The following article by John Hudson and Carol Morello was posted on the Washington Post website July 7, 2018:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met North Korean officials in Pyongyang on July 6, hoping to “fill in” details on denuclearization. (Reuters)

TOKYO — In a sharp signal that denuclearization negotiations with North Korea will be drawn out and difficult, Pyongyang on Saturday lambasted the U.S. stance as regrettable, gangster-like and cancerous, directly contradicting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s rosy assessment that his two days of talks had been “productive.”

A harsh statement from an unnamed spokesman for the Foreign Ministry was carried on the state-run Korea Central News Agency just hours after Pompeo left Pyongyang on Saturday and told reporters that significant progress had been made “in every element” of what he characterized as “good-faith negotiations.” Pyongyang crushed that appraisal, saying the United States had betrayed the spirit of the June 12 Singapore summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“The U.S. side came up only with its unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization,” the statement said.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

Pompeo calls questions about gaps in Trump-Kim statement ‘insulting and ridiculous’

The following article by Karen DeYoung was posted on the Washington Post website June 13, 2018:

Secretary of State Pompeo walks with Gen. Brooks, commander of US Forces Korea in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Credit: Jeon Heon-Kyun, EPA-EFE, Shutterstock

Questions about perceived gaps in the joint statement signed by President Trump and Kim Jong Un are “insulting and ridiculous and frankly ludicrous,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Wednesday in Seoul, where he is briefing South Korea on Tuesday’s U.S.-North Korean summit in Singapore.

Asked specifically about verification of Pyongyang’s denuclearization and whether it will be irreversible — objectives outlined by Trump but unmentioned in the statement — Pompeo said: “The modalities are beginning to develop. There will be a great deal of work to do. There’s a long way to go. There’s much to think about.” Continue reading “Pompeo calls questions about gaps in Trump-Kim statement ‘insulting and ridiculous’”