Outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly eschewed all diplomatic “niceties” on Tuesday to accuse official Turkey of actually undermining the cohesion of NATO as well as opposing the principles of the Atlantic alliance, media reports in Athens stated, quoting sources at an earlier teleconference of NATO’s foreign affairs ministers.
Pompeo, roughly a week after snubbing Turkish leadership during a visit to Istanbul, also reportedly referred to Turkish provocations in Libya, Syria, the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in the Caucauses and the wider eastern Mediterranean.
The same sources said the now “lame duck” Trump administration’s top diplomat called Turkey’s controversial purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system a “gift” from Moscow.
Finally, Pompeo charged that the increasingly autocratic Erdogan administration has failed to implement its part of a bilateral military de-confrontation mechanism with Greece.
