United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has postponed his visit to Ukraine after protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Instead, Pompeo will monitor the situation in the Middle Eastern country, the State Department announced on Jan. 1.
Pompeo was scheduled to arrive in Kyiv on Jan. 3, where he would have been the first top official from the Donald Trump administration to visit the country since the U.S. House of Representatives impeached the U.S. president.
Pompeo was scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, Defense Minister Andriy Zahorodniuk, members of civil society and the business community during the visit.
Then, on Dec. 31, protesters stormed U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in response to deadly U.S. airstrikes that killed 25 members of an Iranian-backed militia in Syria and Iraq.
Administration officials and lawmakers blamed Iran for instigating the protests, in which demonstrators scaled the walls and forced their way through the gates of the American compound. The embassy was placed under lockdown but was not evacuated.
Pompeo’s planned trip to Ukraine attracted attention after several U.S. media reported that the secretary of state did not want to visit the country while interim U.S. Ambassador William Taylor was still serving there. Taylor will leave Ukraine on Jan. 2, less than two weeks before he reaches the maximum term that political appointees not confirmed by the U.S. Senate can serve.
Taylor has led the U.S. mission to Ukraine since June.
The U.S. ambassador served as a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into Trump, providing damning testimony about the U.S. president’s alleged attempts to extort politically motivated investigations from the Ukrainian government. Trump repeatedly falsely accused the career diplomat of being a “Never Trumper.”
Pompeo’s visit to Ukraine, as well as to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus, will be rescheduled in the near future, the State Department said.
