US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Iceland next week, as well as to Greece and Portugal, according to what the ministry announced Thursday. In an effort to strengthen the diplomatic push of the United States in the Arctic after the agreement regarding Greenland.
A State Department statement explained that Rubio is meeting in Reykjavik with Icelandic officials “to discuss economic and security cooperation” between the two countries.
This visit comes a few days after a security agreement regarding Greenland was concluded last week in New York, which put an end to a series of disputes and strained relations with the European Union.
Under this agreement, Washington intends to establish two new military bases in Greenland, which will make the autonomous Danish region consolidate its position in the American orbit, after Donald Trump’s threats to annex it.
As tensions rise in the Arctic, Iceland has regained major strategic importance, but the island, which has no army, still depends largely on the United States to ensure its security, as well as on NATO.
The US President sparked a new controversy at the beginning of last September by publishing a “map” in which the American flag covered all of North America, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Greenland and Iceland.
Iceland responded by summoning the US ambassador in Reykjavik “to inform him clearly that this image is completely inappropriate.”
Rubio's visit also comes after a referendum held in late August, in which 52.8 percent of Icelanders voted to reject the resumption of negotiations for the island's accession to the European Union, which have been frozen since 2013, while 47.2 percent supported it.
The last visit by a US Secretary of State to Iceland dates back to 2021.
After that, Marco Rubio heads to Athens to participate in a “strategic dialogue” in which regional security and energy security are the most prominent topics.
A short visit to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, will be the last stop on Rubio's tour.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Kiev had introduced its FB-7 tactical ballistic missile into combat operations for the first time, according to Reuters.
Zelensky wrote on Telegram: “The first use in combat of the Ukrainian tactical ballistic missile FB-7. Thanks for this result. The next step is production.”
Zelensky did not mention the location of the FB-7 missile being used on the battlefield or the target it hit.
Russia frequently uses ballistic missiles in its attacks against Ukrainian targets, while Kiev considers the development of its tactical ballistic missiles an important component of meeting its defense needs.
Ukrainian military analysts describe the FB-7 missile as short-range, with a range of about 200 kilometers.
Firepoint, the company that manufactures the missile, says that it is being developed to be a ballistic interceptor missile as part of a European missile defense program launched this year.
The Spanish Royal Palace announced today (Thursday) that King Felipe and Queen Letizia will visit Ceuta and Melilla on October 13 and 14, more than two months after the unprecedented migration crisis witnessed in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa.
The last visit by a Spanish monarch to the two regions located in North Africa dates back to November 2007, when King Juan Carlos visited them. That visit then sparked a diplomatic crisis with Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the two enclaves.
Felipe VI has not yet visited the two regions since he assumed the throne in 2014.
This visit was agreed upon between “the government and the Royal Palace,” according to the palace.
On July 30 and 31, more than 70,000 migrants arrived in Ceuta by swimming or walking from Morocco, more than a hundred of whom died during the heavy flow, according to data from Madrid and Rabat.
Most of the migrants were returned to Morocco, but thousands remain in Ceuta, where the situation is deteriorating in light of clashes and protests from the population.
This crisis sparked severe diplomatic tensions between European Union countries, especially between Spain and Italy, and increased pressure on the socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, who is already accused by the right-wing opposition of inaction on the issue of immigration and on Morocco.
On Tuesday, during a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron, King Felipe called on the bloc’s countries to “exercise more effectiveness and solidarity in protecting the external borders of the European Union” while “strengthening cooperation” between the twenty-seven countries.
