BackJohn Kerry arrives back in US after breaking his leg
Kerry broke his right femur on Sunday while cycling a portion of the Tour de France route in the Haute Savoie region
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Washington/Geneva: US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived back in the United States on Monday aboard a special military flight from Europe after breaking his leg in a cycling accident.
After landing at Boston’s Logan airport at 8:50pm EDT (0050 GMT Tuesday), Kerry headed to Massachusetts General Hospital in that city for further treatment, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
Kerry, 71, broke his right femur on Sunday while cycling a portion of the Tour de France route in the Haute Savoie region. He spent the night in a Geneva hospital under observation while his return to the United States was planned.
Kerry had been in Geneva for negotiations on Saturday with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and after the accident has had to cancel planned visits to Madrid and Paris.
The C-17 military aircraft, brought from the US military base in Ramstein, Germany, departed Geneva’s Cointrin airport shortly before 1600 GMT, Reuters witnesses said, bound for Kerry’s home city of Boston.
“Headed back to Boston. Look fwd to getting leg set & getting back to @StateDept! Meantime, work goes on. Big thanks for well-wishes," Kerry tweeted minutes after departure.
Earlier, Kerry told French foreign minister Laurent Fabius he would participate by telephone in a summit on Tuesday in Paris bringing together some two dozen countries to discuss the US-led coalition’s strategy against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
Kerry also assured Fabius he would return to cycle again in France, French officials said.
The secretary had been due to travel to Spain on Sunday to sign a bilateral defence agreement that would allow the United States to have permanent use of Moron air base near Seville.
The US diplomatic mission in Geneva said Dennis Burke, a doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital, was accompanying Kerry on the flight back to Boston.
Burke, who previously performed hip surgery on Kerry, flew to Geneva on Monday to evaluate the secretary’s femur.
Kerry was brought to Geneva hospital by helicopter on Sunday morning and had initially been expected to return to the United States that evening but stayed on as a “precaution," officials said. Reuters
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