Kerry praised the new foreign secretary as a man of “considerable intellect” who appeared to be “a very smart and capable man”.
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“I am amazed it happens so fast – how do you have time to pack everything?”
Kerry was forced to prop up Johnson saying the United Kingdom had made it clear after the European Union referendum that it was committed to the UN, Nato and to make the world safer.
Another video with Kerry helping Boris out, “It’s called diplomacy Boris”.
Kerry, who also met new prime minister Theresa May, said he was “gratified by the reassurances” both had offered him over the UK’s global role.
Their approaches could not be more different. He tried to brush off the first couple of questions with a prepared answer but became more irritated.
At times, Kerry sounded like an instructor to the neophyte diplomat.
Unlike Johnson’s European allies, still stung by a British “leave” campaign they believed was replete with lies, Kerry backed Johnson – albeit awkwardly.
Later this evening, the two officials will hold talks on Syria with European ministers and discuss the conflict in Yemen with foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Everywhere he goes, he is trying to undo the damage wrought by his previous verbal excesses.
Since then he has continued to court controversy, for example accusing US President Barack Obama of nurturing an ancestral dislike for the British empire. In 2007, he likened Clinton to Lady Macbeth and wrote that she has “got dyed blond hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”. Do you take these comments back?
“Most people who read these things in their proper context can see exactly was intended”.
“I did not feel it targeted me when he said that, nobody around the table did”.
There are indications that Johnson is acting with more decorum since assuming his new post.
Newly appointed British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, right, speaks with Belgium’s Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, center, and Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Margallo before the EU foreign ministers meeting at the EU Council building, in Brussels, Belgium, Monday, July 18, 2016.
Boris Johnson will have to share the grace and favour house of the Foreign Secretary with his Cabinet colleagues David Davis and Liam Fox.
There are also indications that his views are changing.
He has in the past written newspaper columns suggesting the West should work with President Bashar al-Assad to fight IS and has praised the Syrian leader’s success in ousting the group from the historic ruins of Palmyra.
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But Kerry said he had been reassured by his meetings in Brussels and London that the drawn-out divorce process would be conducted in a measured and serious way.
