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Cameron meets Blinken after 'private' talks with Trump

April 09, 2024
UK Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron makes a point during a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Tuesday.
UK Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron makes a point during a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks on the Ukraine and Gaza wars.

The former PM also urged Congress to approve a further $60bn (£47bn) of aid for Kyiv in a joint press conference.

Lord Cameron said the UK has "grave concerns" about humanitarian access to Gaza, but that it would not halt arms exports to Israel.

He added that there was precedent for his earlier "private" meeting with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Lord Cameron and Blinken both reaffirmed their support for Ukraine earlier on Tuesday, with the UK foreign secretary asserting that "Ukraine can win this war".

Republican lawmakers in the United States have been blocking the proposed military aid package for Ukraine for months.

Lord Cameron pleaded for more support to Ukraine, saying that Western powers had a responsibility to help repel Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Future generations are going to look back at us and say 'did we do enough?'" he told the press conference in Washington DC.

He and Blinken also addressed the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The US secretary of state acknowledged Israel's commitment to allowing more aid into Gaza, but said the US is measuring its success on the "sustained results" of the policy.

Lord Cameron repeatedly dismissed questions asking him to divulge the details of his earlier meeting with former President Donald Trump, which he said was a "private meeting".

He argued there was precedent for foreign secretaries to meet opposition candidates during visits abroad.

Lord Cameron has previously criticized Trump, who is the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party in the US presidential election in November.

Trump, and his supporters within the party, oppose the US package providing aid to Ukraine. Some in the House of Representatives have vowed to vote against the package without additional funding for US border security being agreed to first.

Lord Cameron has been urging Republicans for some time to approve the aid package, particularly angering Republican congresswoman and Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who previously told the foreign secretary to "kiss my ass".

She was responding to an article written by the foreign secretary, in which he warned the US against showing "the weakness displayed against [Nazi Germany leader Adolf] Hitler in the 1930s".

In 2015, during his time as prime minister, Lord Cameron labeled Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the US "divisive, stupid and wrong".

"I think if he came to visit our country I think it'd unite us all against him," Lord Cameron said at the time, when Trump was not yet elected.

Trump replied by warning he may not have a "very good relationship" with Cameron during his presidency.

In his memoirs published in 2019, Lord Cameron further said that he found it "depressing" that Trump could win an election, and that it was due to his "protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic interventions". — BBC


April 09, 2024
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