American diplomacy chief Antony Blinken is in Turkey today, the first stop on a regional tour of the Middle East that will take him to Israel, the occupied West Bank and Qatar to demand more aid for Gaza and beyond to speak as if to avoid a conflagration three months after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. This is the US secretary of state's fourth mission since October, which promises to be very difficult given disagreements between the US and Israel over Tel Aviv's ongoing attacks on Gaza. At a meeting in November, Blinken told Netanyahu that the Israelis needed to accept a series of pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow more aid to flow to the war zone and for civilians to leave areas under attack. But Erdogan remains one of Israel's harshest critics because, for the strongman from Ankara, who has failed to play a mediating role between Israelis and Hamas, Israel is a “terrorist state” and the Islamist group a “group of liberators.” The sensitive issue of Sweden's membership in NATO is the other reason for Blinken's visit to Turkey. At the end of December, the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Turkish Parliament half-opened the doors of the Atlantic Alliance to Sweden, but the accession protocol still needs to be approved by the majority of MPs, putting an end to the “pregnancy” that has lasted almost 20 months. Along with Hungary, Turkey is the latest NATO member to block the path of this Scandinavian country. Ankara criticizes Sweden for its alleged leniency toward Kurdish militants who have sought refuge on its territory and is using its blocking power to secure the delivery of 40 American F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits for those it already has. According to a diplomatic source in Ankara, the F-16 dossier was the focus of a phone conversation between Blinken and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan last week. Blinken will also meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan today and make a brief stop in Greece at the end of the day amid concerns about the sale of fighter jets to Ankara.
