US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired

The US President Donald Trump has removed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. US media said Mr Tillerson has been replaced with the CIA Director, Mike Pompeo.

President Trump in his tweet confirmed the sacking of Tillerson saying that Pompeo would be the next secretary of state.

Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2018

Talking to journalists, Trump said, "We got along actually quite well but we disagreed on things ... when you look at the Iran deal; I think it's terrible".

The itv news pointed out another issue. It said earlier it appeared that another issue over which the two were at odds was Mr Skirpal's poisoning in Salisbury.

Mr Tillerson had said the nerve agent attack on ex-spy Skripal and his daughter Yulia "clearly came from Russia", while the White House, appeared unwilling to point the finger at Moscow.

But answering questions from journalists, Mr Trump said he was willing to take "as fact" British assertions that the poisoning was linked to Russia.