The replacement of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo by President Donald Trump is a “very negative development” that will further endanger the Iran nuclear deal,” says a former US foreign policy adviser and diplomat.
"I think this is a very negative development to replace Rex Tillerson with Mike Pompeo. Tillerson was very strong in retaining the nuclear deal with Iran and I think he was more inclined to dump that," James Jatras said in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
"My fear is that Mr. Pompeo’s taking over the State Department will be actually more effective in running the department than Tillerson was and will move it further in direction of a standard Republic deep state policy that will be hostile to everything that Donald Trump ran for during the campaign," Jatras said.
“I think it is a very dangerous and negative development,” he added.
Trump tweeted the news of Tillerson's ouster on Tuesday. Before the president's tweet, The Washington Post first reported news of Tillerson's firing, citing White House officials.
Tensions between Tillerson and Trump have been simmering for months, sometimes visibly. The two have publicly diverged on some of the administration's most crucial foreign policy challenges, including Iran, Russia and North Korea.
Trump noted the differences he had with Tillerson. "When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible. I guess he thought it was okay,” the president said of Tillerson.
Tillerson was reported to have privately called Trump a “moron” in July after the president suggested a 10-fold increase in the US nuclear arsenal during a meeting at the Pentagon.