Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State
New York, New York
Palace Hotel
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. It is a real pleasure to welcome Foreign Secretary Truss here to New York and to the United States, and this is our first opportunity to meet. We had a chance to speak on the phone the other day, but it’s just a great pleasure to connect in person. This is the first meeting I’ll have an opportunity to do here in New York at the UN General Assembly, and that’s very fitting given the extraordinary partnership and agenda that we have between our countries, lots that we are very actively working on, lots we’ll be discussing today.
I’m particularly pleased that we’re also meeting just when we’ve made the announcement on the lifting of travel restrictions, which is something we’ve been talking about for some time. Very pleased that Elizabeth (inaudible) with us and also to get going on a lot of work that we have to do together. So welcome. So very good to be with you.
FOREIGN SECRETARY TRUSS: Well, fantastic. Thank you very much, Secretary Blinken. It’s fantastic to be here on my first overseas visit since being appointed as foreign secretary last week. And we welcome hugely the lifting of the travel ban and the ability of vaccinated UK citizens to travel to the United States, which will help our trade and our business relationships but also families who want to travel across the Atlantic.
And I’m delighted to be meeting you to talk about how we deepen further our very important partnership in areas, of course, like the economy, but also our mutual security, so fantastic to be here.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you. Thanks, everyone.
