US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will travel to Europe next week, stopping in London and Paris for talks on Iran and Syria before heading on to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum and then to Warsaw, the US State Department said on Thursday, Reuters reported. In a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in California on Wednesday, Tillerson had vowed the US military would stay in war-torn Syria for the foreseeable future to counter militant groups and Iran, even as he urged patience in waiting out Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Bloomberg reported. The top diplomat singled out Iran for criticism several times, contending that “through its position in Syria, Iran is in a stronger position to extend its track record of attacking US interests, allies and personnel in the region.”
“It [Iran] is spending billions of dollars a year to prop up Assad and wage proxy wars at the expense of supporting its own people,” he claimed. “Diminishing” Iran’s influence in Syria is a key goal for US policy in Syria, Tillerson added.
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