US, China officials to hold top-level security talks Friday

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(FILES) In this file photo taken on October 18, 2018 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the press about his trip to Saudi Arabia after meeting with US President Donald Trump in the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC. – The United States will exempt China, India and Japan from oil sanctions on Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said November 5, 2018, while vowing to be “relentless” in pressuring Tehran. Pompeo listed eight countries that will enjoy temporary waivers from a ban on all oil transactions with Iran: China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will host their Chinese counterparts Friday in Washington for a round of high-level diplomatic and security talks, the US State Department announced.

The second US-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue will bring Mattis and Pompeo together with senior Communist Party foreign affairs official Yang Jiechi, and with General Wei Fenghe, a department statement said.

The talks, which follow on from a first meeting held in June 2017, are the latest sign of a normalization of US-China security ties, after relations soured dramatically amid tensions over trade and the South China Sea.

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