WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads to the Middle East, the first of two senior US officials to call on the region this week, as the Trump administration urges an ambitious push for Arab-Israeli peace that the President Donald Trump hopes that will happen. hone your foreign policy credentials before the November elections.
Pompeo travels to Israel, several Persian Gulf states and Sudan and will be absent when he is due to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, which will nominate Trump for a moment. If Pompeo seems remote or videotaped, it will break a long culture of secretaries of state refusing to participate in the public political appointment process.
Previous secretaries of state have departed from overtly partisan rhetoric. Pompeo’s 3 early predecessors were willing to be out of the country and unavailable during their political parties’ presidential nomination occasions. Pompeo is very likely to promote Trump’s policies in the Middle East and the recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations.
On Sunday Pompeo tweeted: “Looking forward to sharing with you how my circle of family members is SAFE and SAFE thanks to President Trump. See you all Tuesday night! “
To fuel progress in the region, Pompeo is expected to be followed to several of the same destinations later in the week through Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, diplomats said.
The separate visits come as the leadership seeks to capitalize on the momentum of the historic Israel-UAE deal.
In addition to Israel and Sudan, the State Department said Pompeo will be Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Authorities said stopovers in Oman and Qatar were also possible.
“America’s commitment to peace, security and stability in Israel, Sudan and the Gulf countries has never been more powerful than under the leadership of President Trump,” the State Department said on a pronounced Pompeo trip.
Kushner and his team are expected to travel to Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco on their trip, which is expected to begin at the end of the week, according to diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity. because the address has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.
In Israel, Pompeo will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to discuss regional security issues similar to Iran’s malicious influence, identify and deepen Israel’s relations in the region, as well as cooperation with the economies of malicious US investors. and Israelis, “depending on the state. The department said.
“Malicious Investors” is a reference to China, which will be commercially identified in Israel.
In Khartoum. Pompeo will meet with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok “to discuss the continuation of the United States for the civilian-led transitional government and explicitly for the deepening of relations between Sudan and Israel,” the branch said. Sudan is eager to be removed from the list of US states in which terrorism and normalization of relations with Israel would be a step towards that goal.
However, the removal from the terrorist list is also based on the conclusion of a reimbursement agreement for those affected by the 1998 attacks who oppose the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A precept agreement reached several months ago is still pending finalization.
Pompeo and Kushner are not expected to result in any rapid progress announcements, but neither is aiming to capitalize on the good fortune of the Israel-UAE deal by finalizing at least one, and potentially more. close to the future. future.
The leadership has continued those efforts despite Palestinian objections and without any indication that the Palestinians are in a position to participate in negotiations with Israel. The Arab world has long viewed a settlement of the protracted Israeli-Palestinian standoff as a prerequisite for comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.
Israel and the UAE announced on August 13 that they would identify full diplomatic relations, as a component of a deal negotiated through the United States that required Israel to end its controversial plan to annex occupied West Bank lands sought through the Palestinians.
The deal was a key foreign policy victory for Trump as he sought re-election and reflected a converting Middle East in which shared considerations of Iran’s nemesis have far exceeded classical Arabic for Iran. Palestinians.
Last week, the leadership took the questionable resolution at the UN Security Council to provoke the reinstatement of all foreign sanctions against Iran, which Israel and the Arab Gulf countries have publicly supported. Thirteen of the 15 members of the council, added to the American allies of Great Britain, France and Germany, rejected the measurement.
Pompeo’s plans to tackle the Republican National Convention would be an unprecedented and unconventional step for any member of the pantry, let the secretary of state overseeing a corps of career diplomats steeped in partisanship.
The State Department said Pompeo will speak in a personal capacity.
“No State Department resources will be used. Staff are interested in preparing comments or arranging for Secretary Pompeo to appear. The State Department will pay the prices related to this appearance, ”the branch said in a statement.
Like his two predecessors, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, either of whom was a candidate for president not elected by the Democratic Party, Pompeo was a member of Congress before joining the executive branch. Clinton and Kerry have walked away from the Democratic National Convention when they were America’s most sensible diplomats.
When President Barack Obama officially appointed for a moment at the party conference in 2012, Clinton literally traveled half of the world, traveling to the Cook Islands, Indonesia, China, East Timor, Brunei, and Russia’s Far East. When Clinton nominated in 2016, Kerry was traveling in Europe and Southeast Asia.
They are not just Democrats. When the Republicans named John McCain in 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was traveling to Portugal, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.