US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his first official visit to the UK on Friday amid a transatlantic spat over intelligence leaks in the wake of Monday’s deadly terror attack.
Tillerson is scheduled to meet his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, “in an expression of UK-US solidarity following the terrorist attack in Manchester earlier this week,” a Foreign Office statement said.
It comes after senior UK government officials lambasted the US over a series of high-profile leaks to US media of details surrounding the Manchester bombing investigation.
US sources were the first to reveal the identity of the suspected suicide bomber, leading to concern that police efforts to hunt down his associates could be impacted. The leaks culminated in the New York Times publishing crime scene photos.
Tillerson and Johnson will meet in London at Carlton Gardens, the official residence of the Foreign Secretary. They will likely discuss a range of issues that include foreign policy; future action on terrorism; the UK’s upcoming general election on June 8; and the improvement of trade ties as the UK looks to strengthen its hand in its Brexit withdrawal negotiations.
Tillerson and Johnson will also sign a condolence book for the victims of the Manchester attack.
‘Deeply troubling’ leaks
Tillerson’s visit is intended to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to the “special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom and our solidarity in defeating terrorism in every part of the world,” a State Department statement read.
The visit comes after UK Prime Minister Theresa May confronted US President Donald Trump about the intelligence leaks during their meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels Thursday.
In a written statement, Trump described the leaks as “deeply troubling.”
He ignored shouted questions about whether Britain could trust the US with its intelligence as he was greeting French President Emmanuel Macron outside the US Chief of Mission’s residence ahead of the talks.
The breakdown of trust between the two countries led to the brief suspension on the sharing of intelligence on Thursday.
Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said the decision to stop sharing information was taken because they couldn’t “afford to risk it anymore.”
Later on Thursday, after receiving “fresh assurances” the suspension was lifted, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
“While we do not usually comment on information sharing arrangements with international law enforcement organizations we want to emphasize that, having received fresh assurances, we are now working closely with our key partners around the world including all those in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance,” Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, head of the UK’s national Counter Terrorism Policing said.
There have been multiple arrests and other significant developments in the Manchester bombing investigation. So far 10 people have been arrested at addresses in Manchester, Wigan and Nuneaton. Eight remain in custody.
The suspected suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, likely received some ISIS training by traveling to Syria in the months before the attack, according to information gathered in the preliminary investigation, a US official told CNN on Thursday.
As police raids continued, specially trained firearms officers were being assigned patrol duty for the first time in the UK.
White House leaks nothing new
The Manchester intelligence leaks are not the first to have emanated from the White House since Trump took office.
His administration has been beset by whistleblowers since January, much to the President’s frustration, and he has repeatedly called for harsher penalties for those who leak sensitive information to the press.
It is also not the first intelligence snafu that has come out of the administration. Trump was widely criticized for allegedly sharing highly confidential information with the Russian Foreign Minister and the Russian Ambassador to the US in an Oval Office meeting.
H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, denied that sensitive intelligence was divulged.
“At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that weren’t already publicly known,” he said. “I was in the room. It didn’t happen.”