Britain's newly-appointed Foreign Minister Boris Johnson is to make his first official visit to the United States Thursday for talks with the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
Britain retains an active aerial role in both Iraq and Syria alongside the U.S. and more than a dozen other coalition partners in a bombing campaign against the radical Islamist group that has claimed attacks in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Ankara and Istanbul since October 2015.
He has previously described ISIS jihadis as "wankers" who watch pornography because they have no success with women, adding that they are "tortured" individuals because of "their feeling of being a failure" with the world seemingly against them.
"If you look at all the psychological profiling about bombers, they typically will look at porn. They are literally wankers. Severe onanists," he said.
Johnson will now be leading the diplomacy involved in the fight against ISIS, coordinating with coalition partners, alongside Prime Minister Theresa May and Defense Secretary Michael Fallon.
Before hosting a European delegation on the Syrian conflict, Johnson is to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in London Tuesday to reaffirm the importance of the special relationship despite the U.K. vote to leave the European Union last month.
Before the talks Tuesday, Johnson appeared to change his position on the Syrian crisis. He said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must not remain in power if the country was to return to normality after more than five years of conflict.
He had previously stated in an article for The Daily Telegraph that Assad was the person to help defeat ISIS, and that the West should not disavow Assad because of his alleged crimes against Syria's civilian population.
"We need someone to provide the boots on the ground; and given that we are not going to be providing British ground forces—and the French and the Americans are just as reluctant—we cannot afford to be picky about our allies," he wrote.
