Press release: Foreign Secretary visits Lisbon and Paris

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson today (Friday 27) embarks on a two day visit to Portugal and France.

The Foreign Secretary is this morning in Lisbon, for his first official visit to Portugal. Boris Johnson will meet his opposite number Foreign Minister Santos Silva to discuss negotiations on the UK exit from the EU, and how to intensify the world’s oldest bilateral alliance.

Later today, the Foreign Secretary will travel to Paris where he will hold talks with French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian. The ministers will discuss major global security challenges such as Iran and DPRK.

Ahead of his visit, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:

Portugal and the UK have the oldest bilateral Alliance in the world: the Treaty of Windsor, signed on 9 May 1386.

In Lisbon I will discuss how to strengthen our friendship and ensure that after the UK leaves the EU we continue to have a strong, special and modern alliance.

On his visit to Paris, he said:

In Paris, I will discuss with our French partners how we respond together to some of the toughest global security issues we face – Syria, Iran, Ukraine, DPRK.

The UK and France are not only allies, we are the closest of neighbours and friends. Hundreds of thousands of our citizens live in each other’s countries; millions of us cross the Channel every year on visits; and our languages are the most commonly taught in each others’ schools. So as the UK leaves the European Union we are not only preserving a crucial alliance, but writing a new chapter in that story.