A warm welcome in Germany for US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday, even though he abruptly canceled plans for a visit earlier this month over concerns about Iran. Chancellor Angela Merkel says the U.S. continues to be Germany’s most important partner outside of Europe. On Iran, she made clear Germany stands by the Iran nuclear deal. It will discuss various problems. The world is in great restlessness, especially the issue of Iran and how we prevent Iran coming into ownership of nuclear weapons, how we prevent other aggressive actions from Iran.

We will speak about Afghanistan where we both have a considerable amount of troops stationed. We will speak about the situation in Syria and of course the very fragile situation in Libya. Pompeo highlighted common ground, saying the US will not stand in the way of a system that Europeans are developing to protect companies dealing with Iran from American sanctions as long as the focus is on providing humanitarian aid. He also cautioned against engaging with China’s telecommunications giant Huawei to help develop 5G networks in Germany and elsewhere. We’ve been pretty clear about how we view the rest is connected to Huawei and 5G inner structure, infrastructure. The internet in the future must have Western values embedded within it. Pompeo said Huawei will be an issue at every stop on his Europe tour, because the U.S. views it as a threat to NATO security.

Cindy Saine, VOA News, Washington.