Pompeo to meet Netanyahu in Israel after Turkey talks

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Friday, hours after Turkey agreed with Washington to pause its offensive on Kurdish forces in Syria, Reuters reports.

Israel sees Syria’s Kurds, once US allies, as a counterweight to Islamist insurgents in northern Syria.

Thursday’s truce, brokered in Ankara by a US team including Pompeo and US Vice President Mike Pence, gives Kurdish forces five days to withdraw from a “safe zone” that Turkey had sought to capture.

Pompeo will fly to Brussels later on Friday for a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.