US has 'no plans' to recognise Palestinian state, Vance says before talks with UK foreign secretary
London, Aug 8 (AP): US Vice President JD Vance met with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Friday at a stately home south of London, with the two leaders saying the agenda includes global economics and the Israel-Hamas war and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Taking questions from reporters before their talks, Vance addressed the UK decision to recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza, saying he wasn't sure what such recognition would even mean, “given the lack of a functional government there.”
Asked whether Trump had been given a heads up on Israel's announced intent to occupy Gaza City, Vance said he wouldn't go into such conversations.
“If it was easy to bring peace to that region of the world, it would have been done already,” he said.
The meeting comes amid debates between Washington and London about the best way to end the wars between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Israel and Hamas. It's also taking place as the United Kingdom tries to come to favourable terms for steel and aluminum exports to the US, and the two sides work out details of a broader trade deal announced at the end of June.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he hoped to meet with US President Donald Trump next week, comments that came a day before Trump's deadline for Moscow to show progress in ending the nearly 3½-year war in Ukraine.
While Trump has focused on bilateral talks with Putin, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other European leaders have stressed that Ukraine must be part of any negotiations on ending the war.
The US and Britain, which have historically close ties known as “the special relationship”, have also disagreed on their approach to ending the war in Gaza.
The meeting took place at Chevening, an almost 400-year-old mansion surrounded by 3,000 acres of gardens that serves as the foreign secretary's official country residence.
About two dozen protesters were spotted on the road before the turnoff to the stately home. A few were wearing keffiyeh scarves and another held up a round sign that had a meme making fun of Vance printed on it.
Vance and Lammy, who come from opposite ends of the political spectrum but have made a personal connection through their hardscrabble childhoods and Christian faith,
While Lammy is a member of the left-leaning Labour Party and Vance is a conservative Republican who supports Trump's “America First” agenda, the two men have bonded in recent months.
Lammy told the Guardian newspaper that the two men can relate over their “dysfunctional” working class childhoods and that he considers Vance a “friend”.
Lammy attended a Catholic Mass at the Vance home in Washington earlier this year, and the two men met again at the US Embassy in Rome when he and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner attended the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in May.
“I had this great sense that JD completely relates to me and he completely relates to Angela,” Lammy told the Guardian. “So it was a wonderful hour and a half.”
After spending a few days at Chevening, Vance and his family will head to the Cotswolds, an area that has become popular with wealthy American tourists because of its quaint villages, stone cottages and rural countryside that hark back to old England. The Vance family's trip will include official engagements, fundraising, visits to cultural sites and museums and meeting with US troops, according to a person familiar with Vance's trip who wasn't authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A host of celebrities descended on the area two weeks ago for the wedding of Eve Jobs, the daughter of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and Harry Charles, a member of the British equestrian team at last summer's Olympic Games in Paris.
The Cotswolds cover about 800 square miles and parts of five counties in the west of England. Vance and his family have reportedly rented a house in the village of Charlbury, 12 miles west of Oxford, according to British media outlets.
“That area is very fashionable,” Plum Sykes, a socialite and journalist, told London-based newspaper The Times.
“If you wanted to be in the super-hot, super-social Cotswolds, that's where you'd go,” she said. “There's been this mass exodus from America to the Cotswolds. Americans just cannot get over the charm. Then power and money attract power and money.”
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Dense fog disrupts operations at Delhi airport; 228 flights cancelled, 5 diverted
New Delhi (PTI): Dense fog disrupted flight operations at Delhi Airport on Monday, with various airlines cancelling 228 flights and diverting five to nearby airports due to low visibility, an official said.
However, except for Air India, which had in an X post in the morning announced the cancellation of some 40 flights, no other airlines, including crisis-hit IndiGo, shared the numbers of their cancelled or delayed flights.
"As many as 228 flights -- 131 departures and 97 arrivals-- have been cancelled due to low visibility, so far," the airport official said.
In addition to this, five flights have been diverted so far, he said.
Earlier, the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), in a statement, said, "Our on-ground officials are working closely with all stakeholders to assist passengers and provide necessary support across Terminals.
"Low visibility (below minima), due to dense fog, has severely impacted operations at Delhi and other airports across northern India, which is unfortunately beyond our control," IndiGo said in a statement.
As operations are adjusted to prevailing weather conditions, some flights may experience delays, while a few others may be proactively cancelled during the day to prioritise safety and minimise extended waiting at the airport, the airline said in a statement.
IndiGo, however, did not say how many of its flights were cancelled or delayed.
The airline said its teams are "closely monitoring" the situation and coordinating with Delhi airport.
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IndiGo also said it issued advisories to its customers and "proactively" informing them, to minimise inconvenience.
“Poor visibility due to dense fog in Delhi this morning has impacted flight operations for all airlines. We are closely monitoring conditions and will resume operations as soon as it is safe to do so,” Air India said in a post on X in the morning.
It also said that some flights have been cancelled In the interest of safety, and to avoid prolonged uncertainty for the guests, while listing out some 40 arrivals and departures that it had cancelled for the day.
Delhi airport is the country's busiest, handling around 1,300 flight movements daily.
