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Kissinger will not endorse any US presidential candidate

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger smiles after receiving an award during a ceremony at the Pentagon honoring his diplomatic career in Washington, DC, May 9, 2016. (AFP photo)

US foreign policy veteran Henry Kissinger says he will not endorse any of the 2016 presidential candidates in the race for the White House, rejecting reports that the Republican guru will publicly back Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

In a statement released on Friday, Kissinger, who served as national security adviser and secretary of state under former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, asserted that he and George Shultz, who was secretary of state under former President Ronald Reagan, had no plans to endorse any candidate.

“We are not making any endorsement in the current presidential election,” the two former secretaries of state said in a joint statement provided to the Time magazine. “We are dedicated to fostering a bipartisan foreign policy, and we will devote ourselves to this effort now and after the election.”

The statement came after reports of the pair’s possible endorsement of Clinton circulated Friday.

Former US secretary of state George Schultz

The speculations originated from the Politico’s interview with Schultz, where he had indicated a joint endorsement of a candidate other than the Republican nominee Donald Trump.

“We are going to do it together,” Politico quoted Schultz as saying. "It will have more impact."

“God help us,” he joked when asked about a Trump presidency.

Although the statement put to rest the rumors, Kissinger has on many occasions voiced his opposition to a Trump presidency.

“On foreign policy, you identify many key problems,” he said of Trump in a Time interview in May. “I do not generally agree with the solutions. One-shot outcomes are probably not possible.”

Clinton (L) and Trump

This is while Clinton has previously touted praise from Kissinger about the way she led the American foreign policy during her run as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time,” the former first lady said at a Democratic debate in February.

In his Politico interview, Schultz also praised Clinton, saying he was impressed by her “deep knowledge of Mexico.”


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