US State Secretary John Kerry congratulated Boris Johnson on Thursday on his appointment as United Kingdom foreign secretary, a spokesman for the US State Department said Thursday.
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Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, named the former mayor of London and one-time EU-bashing Brussels journalist as her foreign secretary on Wednesday, and put another veteran Eurosceptic, David Davis, in charge of European Union exit negotiations. German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had said a day earlier that he was outraged by Britain’s “irresponsible politicians who first lured the country into Brexit, then”.
United Kingdom justice secretary Michael Gove, who had challenged May in the Conservative party leadership race, was among the first sackings announced earlier today from the post he held under former prime minister David Cameron’s Cabinet.
The new team will be tasked with crafting a path forward for the U.K.as it bids to leave the European Union after a referendum last month. “However we’re sure of one thing, that British-Turkish relations are more important than that and can’t be hostage to these statements”.
On Wednesday, Britain’s new PM Theresa May has appointed London Mayor Boris Johnson as the country’s new foreign minister. After the June 23 vote to leave EU, Johnson took time off to play cricket and spurned a chance to stand as PM.
After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops, bolstered by Russian forces, reclaimed the ancient city of Palmyra from the self-styled Islamic State group, Mr Johnson was fulsome in his praise.
British Prime Minister Theresa May filled out her Cabinet posts Thursday, assembling a government that sweeps away many of her predecessor’s supporters and places strongly anti-EU figures in key global roles.
Johnson, meanwhile, is removed from Conservative Party plotting at Westminster and allowed to get on with being a travelling circus.
Schaeuble is influential in Germany’s government and in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. Johnson seems to understand the difference between being the British foreign secretary and a foreign affairs columnist.
While foreign policy might not be a priority for many British voters, leaders around the world have voiced their concern with this appointment.
In April Boris Johnson said that U.S. President Barack Obama opposed Brexit because of his part-Kenyan heritage gave him, in Johnson’s words, an ancestral dislike of the British Empire.
“It is bitter for Great Britain”.
George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer and a friend of Gove’s, said in a speech of his own in Manchester on Friday that he would abandon his pledge to balance the budget by 2020, the end of this Parliament, because of the effect that the referendum would have on growth and the uncertainty surrounding it.
“However I’d actually go so far as to see this as a brilliant and clever appointment, and actually the best way to stop Brexit happening”, he said. He has said that Article 50 of the European Union constitution – the formal trigger for two years of negotiations – should be invoked by the start of 2017.
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He says it’s clear the “upcoming negotiations will not be easy” but said it’s “the responsibility of both sides to make the process of Britain’s withdrawal as smooth as possible”.
