U.S. Secretary of State to visit Costa Rica next week

The head of US diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, will travel to Colombia, Costa Rica and Jamaica next week, the State Department said Thursday, in the seventh visit for the Secretary of State to Latin America.

Pompeo will begin in Bogotá on Monday, where he will meet with President Iván Duque and other regional leaders.

On Tuesday, he will arrive in San José, where he will meet President Carlos Alvarado, and later he will proceed to Kingston, where he will see Prime Minister Andrew Holness, spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

“The Secretary will arrive in San José, Costa Rica, where he will meet with President Carlos Alvarado and visit the Joint Operations Center (located in Base Two), which facilitates regional security cooperation,” a press release from the U.S. Embassy reads.

“Costa Rica is an important ally of the United States, supporting democracy and the rule of law throughout the hemisphere, including in Nicaragua and Venezuela.”

Ortagus said that Pompeo will also travel to Berlin to participate in the Conference on Libya convened by Germany to move toward peace in the African country, which has been devastated by conflict since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi eight years ago.

The Secretary of State’s tour will end on Thursday, Jan. 23 with a stopover in Miami to meet with Governor Ronald DeSantis, and another in Bushnell, Florida, where he plans to deliver a speech on President Donald Trump’s foreign policy before returning to Washington D.C.