U.S. reverses course and offers new dates for NATO talks
Source: Reuters
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson proposed new dates on Tuesday for a NATO meeting, the State Department said, after he initially decided to skip the talks and rebuffed the alliance's efforts to reschedule them.
Tillerson's decision to miss his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers, set for April 5-6 in Brussels, unsettled European allies who worried it reopened questions about U.S. President Donald Trump's commitment to the alliance.
Reuters exclusively reported on Monday that Tillerson would stay in the United States to attend Trump's expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida. U.S. officials also said Tillerson would visit Russia later in April.
The alliance had offered to change the meeting dates so Tillerson could attend both it and the Xi talks but the U.S. State Department rebuffed the idea, a former U.S. official and a former NATO diplomat, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tillerson-nato-idUSKBN16S18S
WORLD NEWS | Tue Mar 21, 2017 | 7:43pm EDT
By Arshad Mohammed and Robin Emmott | WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS
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