Rex Tillerson says US takes 'full responsibility' for Manchester attack leaks on snap visit to UK

Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, has said that America takes "full responsibility" for and "regrets" the leaking of information from the Manchester bomb attack.

A major transatlantic row erupted between the US and British authorities after a host of sensitive information - including photographs from the scene of the attack - was leaked to American news outlets in the wake of Monday's attack.

Speaking during a snap visit that was his first official trip to the UK in a bid to repair relations, Mr Tillerson said: "This special relationship that exists between our two countries will certainly withstand this particular unfortunate event."

The trip came after British police and government officials angrily denounced leaks to US media outlets of information from the attack investigation.

The intelligence leaks led police to suspend some information sharing with the US on Thursday, but the ban was later revoked.

The Foreign Office said that Tillerson and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson held talks and wrote messages of condolence for the Manchester victims.

The Foreign Office said the visit was "an expression of UK-US solidarity following the terrorist attack in Manchester".

The pair were set to also "hold talks on a range of foreign policy issues".

Speaking alongside Mr Tillerson at a Press conference, Mr Johnson condemned Jeremy Corbyn's speech in which he sought to draw links between the war on terror and attacks in the UK as "absolutely monstrous".

Mr Johnson said he found it "absolutely extraordinary and inexplicable in this week of all weeks that there should be any attempt to justify or to legitimate the actions of terrorists in this way".

He told reporters: "This is a moment ... when we should be coming together, uniting to defeat these people, and we can and we will, not just in Iraq and in Syria but of course in the battle for the hearts and minds.

"They are wrong, their view of the world is a corruption and perversion of Islam and it can be completely confounded.

"But now is not the time to do anything to subtract from the fundamental responsibility of those individuals, that individual in particular, who committed this atrocity and I think it is absolutely monstrous that anybody should seek to do so."

US President Donald Trump has described the intelligence leaks as "deeply troubling" and threatened to prosecute those responsible, after a warning by British Prime Minister Theresa May to keep shared data "secure".

The pair met at the summit of NATO allies in Brussels on Thursday.

Arriving in Brussels, May warned that intelligence sharing with the United States was "built on trust".