ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended a grueling Middle East diplomatic trip in Turkey on Monday after efforts to reach a regional consensus on how best to ease the suffering of Gaza’s civilians As Israel intensifies its war, there has been limited success against Hamas.
In the Turkish capital of Ankara, Blinken met with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan after a hectic weekend of travel that took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq to drum up support for the Biden administration’s “humanitarian pause” proposal. to win. on Israel’s relentless military campaign in Gaza.
“This is all still a work in progress,” Blinken said before leaving Turkey. “We obviously don’t agree on everything, but there are shared views on some of the current needs that we are working on together.”
Blinken’s shuttle diplomacy came as Israeli troops surrounded Gaza City and sealed off the northern part of the besieged, Hamas-controlled territory. Troops are expected to enter the city on Monday or Tuesday and are likely to encounter militants fighting street by street through a vast network of tunnels. Casualties on both sides are likely to mount in the month-long war that has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians.
The top US diplomat hopes pauses in the war would allow for a surge in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of hostages captured by Hamas during the militants’ deadly incursion into southern Israel on October 7, which killed more than 1,400 people , mainly civilians, were killed – At the same time, the conflict is prevented from spreading regionally.
“We have spoken to the Israelis about what steps they can take to minimize civilian casualties,” Blinken said before leaving Ankara. “As I said, we are working very intensively to bring more humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
“We are very focused on the hostages held by Hamas, including the Americans, and are doing everything we can to bring them home,” he added.
Blinken did not meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been highly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is a special case among NATO allies who does not express full support for Israel’s right to self-defense.
At the start of the Blinken-Fidan meeting, dozens of protesters from an Islamist group waved Turkish and Palestinian flags and held anti-US and Israel posters in front of the State Department. Earlier in the day, police dispersed a group of students who marched toward the ministry chanting, “Murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!”
On Monday, about 150 people gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara carrying a large banner that read “No to Genocide!”
It was the second day of protests against Blinken’s visit. On Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Turkish riot police outside the American-Turkish Incirlik military air base in the southern city of Adana. Police fired tear gas and water cannons as protesters tried to cross fields to enter the base.
Blinken’s mission, his second in the region since the war began, received lukewarm, if any, support for his efforts to contain the conflict’s fallout. Israel has rejected the idea of a pause, while Arab and Muslim nations are instead calling for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll among Palestinian civilians from Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip soars.
U.S. officials are trying to convince Israel of the strategic importance of respecting the laws of war by protecting non-combatants and significantly increasing deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s beleaguered civilians.
But it remained unclear whether Netanyahu would agree to temporary, rolling pauses in the massive operation to destroy Hamas – or whether it would temper outrage among Palestinians and their supporters.
Jordan and Turkey have already recalled their ambassadors to Israel to protest its tactics, and the mood of international opinion appears to be shifting from sympathy toward Israel to disgust after October 7, as images of death and destruction spread throughout the country Gaza spread around the world.
On Saturday, both the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers appeared at a joint press conference with Blinken in the Jordanian capital Amman. The two said Israel’s war had gone beyond self-defense and could no longer be justified as it now amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
That sentiment was echoed by tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched through the streets of world capitals over the weekend to protest against Israel and condemn U.S. support for Israel.
From Turkey, Blinken traveled to Asia, where the Gaza conflict is likely to be at the forefront along with other international crises in a range of events in Japan, South Korea and India – including Russia’s war against Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
On Sunday, Blinken flew from the occupied West Bank, where he held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
As news of Blinken’s arrival spread in the West Bank city of Ramallah, dozens of Palestinians protested with signs dripping blood and messages like “Blinken’s blood is on your hands.” The meeting with Abbas ended without public comment.
The Palestinian Authority administers semi-autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas has not played a role in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it took control after winning elections there the year before. Abbas himself is unpopular among Palestinians.
American forces in the region are facing a wave of attacks from Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and elsewhere. US forces shot down another unilateral attack drone on Sunday that targeted American and coalition troops near their base in neighboring Syria, a US official said. From Baghdad, Blinken traveled to Turkey.
While the Biden administration remains the strongest supporter of Israel’s military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks, it is increasingly seeking to use its influence over Israel to counteract the impact of the weeks-long, near-round-the-clock siege by Israel to mitigate air, ground and sea attacks in Gaza, home to 2.3 million civilians.
Arab states are resisting American proposals to play a larger role in resolving the crisis. They express outrage at the civilian casualties of Israeli military operations and believe that Gaza is a problem largely of Israel’s own making.
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Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.