WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late Monday called off a trip to London and Istanbul to be with her ailing mother, the State Department announced.
"Due to illness with her mother, Secretary Clinton has canceled her scheduled travel tonight to London and Istanbul, and will instead remain in Washington," a department spokesman said in a statement.
No details were given on the health of the top US diplomat's mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham, who is 92. Rodham reportedly has lived in Clinton's Washington home since 2006.
Rodham, a Chicago-born homemaker, is known as being media-shy but in December 2007 she made a rare public appearance in Iowa to campaign for her daughter's presidential nomination bid.
Clinton changed her travel plans shortly before she was to have left the US capital for Afghanistan to urge its neighbors to avoid meddling there and instead build economic ties with the war-torn state.
Shortly after visiting Afghanistan and three neighboring states, Clinton was to have held talks Wednesday in Istanbul with a broader group about how to boost peace and prosperity after US combat troops withdraw in 2014 and hand over to Afghan forces.
On her way, Clinton was to have stopped Tuesday in London to join officials from 60 countries -- along with Internet pioneers Google, Facebook and Microsoft as well as Chinese technology firms -- to discuss cyber security.
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