Mike Pompeo and Merkel meet in Berlin
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- Published: Friday, 31 May 2019 08:02
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Photo: PLBerlin, May 31.- The Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo, will arrive today in Berlin for political talks behind closed doors with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
At the conclusion of these talks a joint statement will be released and later it is scheduled that Pompeo will participate in a press conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.
Some analysts believe that in addition to bilateral issues, Merkel is likely to talk to Pompeo about international crises, including growing tensions in the Middle East.
The differences between the two in the conflict in Iran are obvious: While Germany works with other European countries to rescue the nuclear agreement, the United States withdrew unilaterally from the pact a year ago and is pressuring Tehran through economic sanctions.
This is the first visit of Pompeo to Berin since he assumed the Secretary of State more than a year ago. At the beginning of May he was supposed to come to Germany but he preferred to travel to Iraq due to the Iranian crisis.
The short-term cancellation caused irritation in Berlin.
A topic of discussion between both countries in this capital will probably be Washington's threats to Tehran.
In recent weeks, the United States and Saudi Arabia have greatly hardened their tone towards Iran. Washington sent an aircraft carrier and a bomber squad to the Middle East.
In addition, in view of the crisis, President Trump had announced only a few days ago the deployment of more US troops in the Middle East.
Other topics of the Maas and Merkel talks with Pompeo will probably be Syria, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Russia and the Ukraine issue.
The USA. urge Berlin to provide military support to a possible protection zone in Syria.
These and other issues are testing the relationship between Germany and the United States.
After Trump's election victory in November 2016, then-Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was already clear: 'Nothing will be easier, but much more difficult.'
There has not been close cooperation between the two countries in the two and a half years since Trump entered the White House.
On the contrary, the US president threw over international agreements, either on climate protection or disarmament, in addition to following a course of confrontation with NATO allies and business partners.
A year ago there was another big scandal when Trump later canceled the agreement at the G7 summit in Canada, through Twitter.
"The withdrawal by tweet is, of course, instructive and a bit depressing," Merkel said at the time.
This state of mind has spread: According to polls, more than 80 percent of Germans consider that the relationship with the US It is bad. (PL)
