Pompeo lauds Israel over coronavirus cooperation, raps China

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Israel on Wednesday for sharing information during global efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and took another swipe at China over what he said was its lack of transparency.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his senior officials have engaged in a war of words with China, where the new coronavirus first emerged, saying it failed to inform the world fast enough about the dangers it posed and muzzled those who raised the alarm. Beijing strongly denies the charges.

Arriving in Israel on a one-day visit, Pompeo told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “You’re a great partner, you share information - unlike some other countries that try and obfuscate and hide that information - and we’ll talk about that country, too.”

Pompeo did not name China and did not give specific examples of Israeli cooperation in the fight against coronavirus.

Earlier, Pompeo repeated Washington’s charges against Beijing in an interview for the Israel Hayom newspaper.

“Here is what we know for sure. The virus originated in Wuhan, China. The Chinese Communist Party knew about this virus in December of 2019 (and) attempted to obfuscate this.