BRASILIA: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States would continue to cooperate with Israel over Syria and in countering Iran in the Middle East, even as President Donald Trump plans to withdraw US troops from Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he met with Pompeo in the Brazilian capital that he planned to discuss how to intensify intelligence and operations cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian “aggression.”
In his first public comments on Trump’s decision, Pompeo said it “in no way changes anything that this administration is working on alongside Israel.”
“The counter-Daesh campaign continues, our efforts to counter Iranian aggression continue and our commitment to Middle East stability and the protection of Israel continues in the same way it did before that decision was made,” he said.
Trump announced last month that he planned to withdraw US troops from Syria, declaring that they had succeeded in their mission to defeat Islamic State and were no longer needed in the country.
In making the announcement, Trump ignored the advice of top national security aides and did so without consulting lawmakers or US allies participating in anti-Daesh operations. The decision prompted Jim Mattis to resign as defense secretary.
“We have a lot to discuss,” said Netanyahu, who like Pompeo was in the Brazilian capital for the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president.
“We’re going to be discussing our, the intense cooperation between Israel and the United States which will also deal with the questions following the decision, the American decision, on Syria and how to intensify even further our intelligence and operational cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian aggression in the Middle East.”
Netanyahu said Israel was very appreciative of the “strong ... unequivocal support” Pompeo gave Israel’s “efforts at self defense against Syria” in the past few days.
State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said Pompeo and Netanyahu “discussed the unacceptable threat that regional aggression and provocation by Iran and its agents poses to Israeli and regional security” and Pompeo reiterated the US commitment to Israel’s security and right to self-defense.
Netanyahu said last month after Trump’s announcement that Israel would escalate its fight against Iranian-aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of US troops.
Israel sees the spread of Iran’s influence in the Middle East as a growing threat, and has carried out scores of air strikes in civil war-torn Syria against suspected military deployments and arms deliveries by Iranian forces supporting Damascus.
Pompeo says cooperation with Israel over Syria and Iran to continue
Pompeo says cooperation with Israel over Syria and Iran to continue
UK interior minister insists asylum reforms ‘fair’ amid blowback
- Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders
- Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow”
LONDON: Britain’s interior minister doubled down Thursday on her tough stance on immigration despite criticism from charities and unease within the ruling Labour party that it is shedding left-wing voters.
Shabana Mahmood announced that asylum seekers who break the law or work illegally will be thrown out of government-funded accommodation and lose their support payments.
The policy forms part of a major overhaul of migration rules announced late last year and modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system that aims to slash irregular migration to the UK.
Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders and that her overhaul of the asylum was “firm but fair,” adding she would open new and safe legal routes.
But Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow” that “risks forcing people into destitution, homelessness and exploitation while they wait for their claims to be decided.”
Mahmood’s reforms are widely seen as an attempt to stem support for the hard-right Reform UK party, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage.
It has topped opinion polls for a year, in part because of the government’s failure to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats.
But her stance has also been credited with contributing to Labour losing support to the progressive Green party, which won a local election in a traditional Labour heartland last week.
Mahmood said there was a middle path between Farage’s “nightmare pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world” and Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s “fairy tale of open borders.”
Her reform that makes refugee status temporary, including for accompanied children, came into force this week.
The status will be reviewed every 30 months, with refugees forced to return to their home countries once those are deemed safe.
They will also need to wait for 20 years, instead of the current five, before they can apply for permanent residency.
She also announced earlier this week that the government would stop issuing education visas to nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
It said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021.
