05 December 2017•Update: 05 December 2017
By Ahmet Sait Akcay
ANKARA
The European Union’s chief diplomat said Monday that Europe sometimes finds it difficult to communicate effectively with the Trump administration.
In an interview with Euronews on the sidelines of a conference in Rome, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini was asked about the relationship between Washington and Brussels on a range of issues.
Among these were Iran’s nuclear deal and the reaction of U.S. President Donald Trump to the accord and the EU’s stance.
“You do not dismantle a nuclear deal that works. It’s a question of priority for the security of Europe and the whole region. President Trump has announced a U.S. strategy on Iran which casts doubt on the deal, and we have reminded our American friends that the deal does not belong to one state or another but that it is a UN Security Council resolution and that we expect all parties to fully respect it,” she said.
Asked how the EU "keeps up with the current U.S. administration, which relies on Twitter diplomacy", she said it talks with its “American friends on all levels and with one voice”.
But things don’t always go smoothly.
“Sometimes I think of Henry Kissinger’s joke: ‘Who do I call if I want to call Europe?’. Now the U.S. has Europe’s number, but it’s our turn to ask ‘Who do we call if we want to call Washington?’!
“But we often talk, and we’re still working well together on a number of issues,” she added.
Turning to North Korea, Mogherini said the EU was “the first to apply the UN sanctions. We were also the first to exert additional economic pressure on Pyongyang. Every time we take action, we coordinate with Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing Moscow”.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is scheduled to meet with EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Dec. 5 for talks.
Amid strained ties due to Trump’s ‘America First’ policy, Tillerson, Mogherini and the ministers will discuss how to boost “transatlantic cooperation on major global challenges”.
