US ambassador rounds off Tour of Belgium – or does he?

The US ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, finished his tour of Belgium’s 589 cities and towns on Sunday in Voeren, Limburg province.  On his arrival in Belgium in 2009 he vowed to undertake the tour as part of the partnership forged between the two countries during the two world wars, which had to be rebuilt after the difficult years of the Bush presidency. “When we arrived in 2009, we knew we could do better, we knew we had to do better,” he said yesterday at a reception for provincial governors and mayors at his home. Gutman recalled the tension that existed among some European countries that had been hostile to the US invasion of Iraq. There was the closing of the port of Antwerp to US ships, exclusion of US aircraft from Belgian airspace and the possibility of officials from the US Department of Defence being indicted in Belgium. “We had to rebuild our relationship with people, and so we decided to do it, vowing to visit each city, village and town,” said Gutman, adding that the arrival of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had allowed the US to redress the balance. “In 2012, Belgium ended up with the best global increase in the ranking of countries friendly to the United States,” he said, mentioning cooperation in Afghanistan, Libya and central Africa. Gutman leaves his post on July 23, a fortnight after the American Independence Day and two days after the Belgian National Day. His successor is not yet known. But could it be that the ambassador has fallen short of his target on his Belgian tour? Marino Keulen, mayor of Lanaken in Limburg province and former Flemish home affairs minister, claims never to have Gutman. “We have never seen him here,” he said. “If he has ever been to Lanaken, he must have done so incognito, because nobody at the town hall (pictured) can remember him visiting the place.”