Top US diplomat falls ill during 5-nation Africa tour, cancels events
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has fallen ill during his current tour of several African states and cancelled all his planned events in the continent for the day, says a senior deputy.
“The secretary is not feeling well after a long couple days working on major issues back home such as North Korea,” said the undersecretary of sate for public diplomacy and public affairs, Steve Goldstein, in a Saturday press briefing with media outlets traveling with Tillerson.
Tillerson is currently on a working Africa tour that includes visits to Kenya, Chad, Nigeria, Djibouti and Ethiopia.
"Some events will go ahead without him, while they are looking at the possibility of rescheduling others," Goldstein said without elaborating on the objectives of his African tour.
Tillerson’s Saturday schedule included an event for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, a wreath-laying ceremony at the August 7th Memorial Park – the site of the 1998 US embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, where more than 200 people were killed -- and a meeting with US diplomats serving at the American Embassy in Nairobi.
Tillerson planned to resume his schedule on Sunday, as he is four days into his Africa tour in which he has so far visited Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya and is due to visit Nigeria and Chad in the coming days.
During the trip Tillerson has also been involved in discussions within administration officials on a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The top US diplomat was in Ethiopia when Trump announced his acceptance of a meeting with Kim. In case the meeting takes place, he will become the first sitting American president to ever meet with a North Korean leader.
However, the White House insists that Pyongyang has to take “concrete” steps on denuclearization in order to ensure the meeting materializes.
This is while Tillerson insisted on Friday that Washington is ready for “talks” with the North Korean leader, not "negotiations," adding during a press conference in Djibouti that "conditions are not right for negotiations. We've been saying for some time we're open for talks."
He further underlined that Kim had shown a "fairly dramatic" change of posture, one that had surprised the US administration and prompted Trump's decision to hold talks.
“So now I think it’s a question of agreeing on the timing of that first meeting between the two of them and a location and that will take some weeks before we get all that worked out,” Tillerson emphasized.
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