ISTANBUL — During a brief stop on a seven-nation tour, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians in Istanbul Tuesday, drawing criticism for not meeting with state officials before leaving the country.

Pompeo paid a visit to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of roughly 300 million Orthodox Christians, who he said in a tweet Tuesday was “a key partner” in efforts “to champion religious freedom around the globe.”

Ahead of the visit, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which it condemned Pompeo’s visit as “irrelevant,” stating Turkish citizens’ religious freedoms were protected by law and instead prompting the US official to “look in the mirror” at incidents of racism, Islamophobia and hate crimes in his own country.

Pompeo’s stopover comes amid high tensions between Washington and Ankara over looming US sanctions and Turkey’s actions in Libya, the eastern Mediterranean and more recently in the Caucasus. Speaking in Paris Monday, Pompeo said the US administration would need to work with European partners to address Turkish interventions in the region.