Britain's Johnson assures EU of post-Brexit cooperation

New Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he would assure his EU counterparts on Monday that Britain would continue to cooperate closely with them once it leaves the bloc following last month's Brexit referendum. "The message I'll be taking to our friends in the council is that we have to give effect to the will of the people and leave the European Union but that in no sense means that we are leaving Europe," the Brexit campaigner told reporters on arrival at an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. "We are not going to be in any way abandoning our leading role in European cooperation and participation of all kinds," added Johnson, a former Brussels-baiting journalist who was on his first foreign trip since being appointed in a surprise move last week by new Prime Minister Theresa May. Johnson had on Sunday met EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, with both stressing their meeting had been held in good spirits, discussing a joint response to the failed coup in Turkey and the militant attack in Nice.

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