WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump has sacked Secretary of State RexTillerson and appointed CIA Chief Mike Pompeo as New Secretary of State.
Reportedly Secretary of State has been sacked over differences with Trumpon Iran nuclear deal.
Trump is against the Iran nuclear deal while Rex Tillerson was againstscrapping the Iran deal.
Earlier the US state department has said it has been assured by the WhiteHouse there are no plans to oust Rex Tillerson and replace him withthe CIA director, Mike Pompeo.
Donald Trump himself was less reassuring, however. When asked whetherTillerson would stay in his job, the president simply noted that thesecretary of state was at the White House on Thursday.
“He’s here. Rex is here,” Trump said.
The cryptic non-denial added fuel to multiple reports quoting White Houseofficials as saying a plan was under consideration to get rid of Tillerson,put Pompeo, a former Republican congressman in his place, and make SenatorTom Cotton, another Trump loyalist, CIA director.
The reports of a reshuffle among top foreign policy and national securityofficials came against a backdrop of stories of clashes between Trump andTillerson. According to the New York Times, the first to report animpending departure, the plan was being put together by the White Housechief of staff, John Kelly.
But state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that Kelly had calledafter the news reports broke and insisted they were false.
“What I can tell you is that chief of staff Kelly called our departmentthis morning and said that the rumours are not true, that those reports arenot true. That is what I’ve been told,’ Nauert said.