US has 'no plans' to recognize Palestinian state, Vance says before
talks with UK foreign secretary
[August 09, 2025]
By DANICA KIRKA and MEG KINNARD
LONDON (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance met with U.K. 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
U.K. decision to recognize 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
favorable terms for steel and aluminum exports to the U.S., 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 U.S. 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, U.K. Prime
Minister Keir Starmer and other European leaders have stressed that
Ukraine must be part of any negotiations on ending the war.
The U.S. 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 (about 1,200 hectares) 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 come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but
have made a personal connection through their hardscrabble childhoods
and Christian faith.
[to top of second column]
|
US Vice President JD Vance meets with Britain's Foreign Secretary
David Lammy at Chevening House in Kent, England, Friday, Aug. 8,
2025. (Suzanne Plunkett/Pool via AP)
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 U.S. 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 U.S. troops, according
to a person familiar with Vance’s trip who wasn't authorized 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 (2,000 square kilometers)
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 (20 kilometers) 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.”
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
