Vice President Mike Pence will make his first visit to Auschwitz with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Feb. 15, The Washington Post reported.
The vice president will be in Warsaw for a joint U.S.-Poland conference on Middle East peace and security later this week. Participants include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Tunisia.
Israel-Palestinian peace deal architects Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt also are scheduled to attend the conference. The Palestinian Authority is reportedly boycotting and calling on Arab governments to follow suit according to the JTA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told government ministers at a weekly Cabinet meeting that he will meet with Pence, as well as with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Pence and Netanyahu will tour a memorial of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising where Jews resisted Nazi efforts to deport remaining residents. The effort failed and the remaining Jews were deported after a month.
Pence, a conservative Christian, is a strong supporter of Israel within the Trump administration.
Pence’s keynote remarks at the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East will highlight what the United States and Israel say is Iran’s widespread malign influence across the region.
“The vice president will essentially call out Iran for their actions. He will give a message to those groups that are there, that, you know, if you stand with us, we’ll stand with you,” a White House official told the Post.
