Tillerson begins a tour of Europe

December 5, 2017. Brussels. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pledged strong US support for the European Union, as he met with NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday, the Voice of America reports. Besides, Tillerson met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (pictured right) to discuss NATO’s commitment to fight against “Islamic State” militants in Iraq, the necessity to withdraw Russian forces from eastern Ukraine, and the role of UN peacekeeping forces in Ukraine. Tillerson’s European tour will last a week: after Brussels, he will visit Vienna to take part in the OSCE annual session and then Paris. The media quote a State Department official as saying that the Ukraine question will be on the agenda of the Vienna meeting. As is known, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the US, Tillerson emphasized that “we [Washington and Moscow. – Ed.] are never going to get this relationship back to normal until we solve Ukraine” and that “Minsk-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia reverses the actions that triggered them.”