Blinken, Erdogan Gaza Diplomacy Begins
Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece on Saturday at the start of a week-long trip aimed at calming tensions that have spiked across the Middle East since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October.
The Biden administration’s most senior diplomat began in Istanbul, meeting Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, for talks.
Blinken and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had earlier discussed the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Turkey’s process to ratify Sweden’s membership of NATO, Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
US officials have been frustrated by the lengthy process, but are confident Ankara will soon approve Sweden’s accession after it won the Turkish parliament’s backing last month, said a senior State Department official traveling with Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US lawmakers have held up the sale of F-16 fighter jets toTurkey until it signs off on the addition of Sweden to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Sweden, which along with Finland applied to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, would become the alliance’s 32nd member. Finland joined last year.
Blinken will later travel to the island of Crete to meet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Fellow NATO member Greece is awaiting the approval by the US Congress of a sale of F-35 fighter jets
