Pompeo pledges support to Slovakia

BRATISLAVA: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised Tuesday that the United States would support Slovakia’s security and economy on his latest stop on a Central European tour aimed at curbing the growing influence of Russia and China.

Pompeo, the first US secretary of state to visit Slovakia in 14 years, told President Andrej Kiska as they met: "It’s been too long since America has been deeply engaged here." A day after talks in Hungary, Pompeo is seeking to highlight the US role in the fall of communism three decades ago as Russian President Vladimir Putin finds a widening audience in the former Eastern Bloc.

Pompeo greeted five former political prisoners at a memorial to the so-called Gate of Freedom on the border with Austria, where 400 people were killed from 1945 to 1989 as they tried to escape the Iron Curtain of then Czechoslovakia.

"Where barbed wire and armed guards stood, today people, goods and information cross freely," Pompeo said. "The United States has stood with the people of Slovakia as a friend, as a partner... for the past 30 years, and we will continue to stand with you in the decades to come," he said.