The Biden administration seeks to involve Turkey in an effort to prevent greater regional warfare in the aftermath of the Gaza war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Istanbul and met with top Turkish officials to kick off a week-long diplomatic journey aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas dispute from growing into a larger confrontation.
After meeting with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan earlier in the day, the US’ top diplomat spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday afternoon.
According to a statement from Turkey’s foreign ministry, Blinken and Fidan discussed the war and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well as Turkey’s procedure to confirm Sweden’s membership in NATO.
The Biden administration seeks to persuade Ankara to discourage other Arab states from joining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to avoid a bigger and more costly war.
According to Reuters, a senior State Department source traveling with Blinken, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Turkey has links with various parties in the conflict, referring to its ties to US adversaries Iran and Hamas.
Erdogan has sharply condemned Israel’s military action in Gaza, accusing it of committing war crimes against the 2.3 million Palestinians who live there. Following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Erdogan denied Hamas is a terrorist organization, instead describing it as a “liberation group” “waging a battle to protect its land and people.”
In the attacks, Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people, largely civilians, and carried 240 hostages back to Gaza.
According to the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry, Israel’s retaliatory war to remove Hamas’ ability to govern has killed 22,700 Palestinians. Hamas officials, on the other hand, make no distinction between civilian and military casualties, and their published figures cannot be independently verified.
The fresh violence in Gaza has spilled over into the West Bank, exacerbated by Hezbollah terrorists launching rockets at Israeli forces along Lebanon’s northern border and Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking trade vessels in the Red Sea.
Blinken’s job is to encourage Arab powers to stop the attacks and to make headway in talks about how Gaza should be governed if and when Israel succeeds in destroying Hamas.
According to Reuters, Washington wants neighboring countries, particularly Turkey, to help with rehabilitation, governance, and maybe security in the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007.
Blinken will next visit Greece to meet with officials before traveling around the Middle East, with stops planned in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, and Israel during the following week.
