Blinken wraps up Mideast trip with Gaza deal still elusive

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Blinken wraps up ******** trip with Gaza deal still elusive

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the press, in Doha, Qatar, August 20, 2024. 

Kevin Mohatt | Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought during a whirlwind trip to the Middle East to inject urgency into efforts to broker a Gaza ceasefire deal, but departed the region on Tuesday with an agreement between ******* and ****** still elusive.

Blinken and mediators from Egypt and Qatar have pinned their hopes on a U.S. “bridging proposal” aimed at narrowing the gaps between the two sides in the 10-month-old war, after negotiations last week paused without a breakthrough.

The deal “needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,” Blinken told reporters in Doha before departing for Washington.

A senior Biden administration official travelling with Blinken said the U.S. expects the ceasefire talks to continue this week.

Blinken travelled to Egypt for talks on Tuesday with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and then to Qatar.

After meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Blinken said ******* had accepted the proposal and urged ****** to do the same. The ************ group has not explicitly rejected it, but says it overturns previously agreed terms.

Blinken was asked in Qatar about ******** troop withdrawal terms within the ceasefire framework and about an Axios report that quoted Netanyahu as saying he may have convinced Blinken that ******* should keep troops in the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza.

“The ******* States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by *******,” Blinken said. “More specifically, the agreement is very clear on the schedule and the locations of (******* Defense Forces) withdrawals from Gaza, and ******* has agreed to that. So that’s as much as I know. That’s what I’m very clear about.”

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Blinken did not comment directly on the Axios report, 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Both ****** and Egypt oppose ******* keeping troops in the Philadelphi Corridor, but Netanyahu has insisted they are needed to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza. A senior U.S. official disputed the Axios report earlier on Tuesday.

Egyptian security sources said the U.S. has proposed an international presence in the Philadelphi Corridor area, a suggestion the sources said could be acceptable to Cairo if limited to a maximum of six months.

“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the ************ state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region,” Sisi said after meeting Blinken.

At stake in the talks is the fate of tiny, crowded Gaza, where *******’s military campaign has ******* more than 40,000 people since October according to ************ health authorities, and of the remaining hostages being held there.

The 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 began on Oct. 7, when ****** gunmen stormed into ******** communities and military bases, ******** around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to ******** tallies.

Blinken has called the latest push for a deal “probably the best, possibly the last opportunity”, and said his meeting with Netanyahu was constructive. He said it was incumbent on ****** to accept the bridging proposal.

Asked about Blinken’s comment, senior ****** official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters: “Blinken is insisting on not quitting the sphere of *****, and that is one of the reasons for the ******** of efforts to reach an agreement.”

Qatar’s foreign minister told Blinken his country is committed to its role as a mediator in the ceasefire talks, along with Egypt and the U.S.

In a phone call, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani stressed to Blinken the importance of consolidating regional and international efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and a ********-prisoner swap deal, Qatar’s foreign ministry said.

Both men underscored that the bridging proposal presented by negotiators addressed the remaining gaps in a manner that allows for swift implementation of the deal, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel in a statement.

Officials from the U.S, ******, *******, Egypt and Qatar have not spelled out what is in the proposal or how it differs from previous versions.

****** accuses ******* of obstructing an agreement with new demands and says the group ******** committed to terms it agreed with mediators in July based on a proposal made by the U.S. in May. Netanyahu denies obstructing a deal.

Months of on-off talks have circled the same issues, with ******* saying the war can only end with the destruction of ****** as a military and political force and ****** saying it will only accept a permanent, not temporary, ceasefire.

The U.S. official said even if ****** were to agree on the bridging proposal immediately, there would have to be additional conversations to iron out details on implementation of the deal.

On Tuesday, *******’s military said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages from southern Gaza. According to ******** authorities, 109 hostages now remain in the ************ territory, around a third of them believed to be *****.

In Gaza, ******** forces battled ******-led militants in central and southern areas on Tuesday, and ************ health authorities said at least 39 people had been ******* in ******** strikes, including on a school housing displaced people.

*******’s military said it had struck ****** militants embedded in the school.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Blinken #wraps #******** #trip #Gaza #deal #elusive

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/