Tillerson To Skip Meeting Of NATO Foreign Ministers

Washington DC, January 11, 2017, USA: Rex Tillerson testifies on Capitol Hill at his confirmation hearing to become the Secretary of State. Credit: Patsy Lynch/MediaPunch/IPX
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip a semiannual meeting of NATO foreign ministers this spring and will instead travel to a Group of 7 meeting of top diplomats in Italy and then to Russia.

U.S. officials said Monday that Tillerson will meet NATO diplomats this week in Washington for a conference on defeating the Islamic State group, suggesting there was no need for him to attend the meeting of the alliance in Brussels. The State Department’s third-ranking official, Under Secretary of State Tom Shannon, will represent the U.S. at that meeting, the officials said.

The officials said Tillerson would attend the G7 meeting in Sicily in May and then travel to Moscow.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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