ANKARA, Turkey — ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a grueling Middle East diplomatic tour on Monday in Turkey after simplest restricted luck in efforts to forge a regional consensus on how absolute best to ease civilian struggling in Gaza as Israel intensifies its conflict in opposition to Hamas.
In the Turkish capital, Ankara, Blinken met with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan following a frantic weekend of go back and forth that took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq, to construct support for the Biden management’s proposal for “humanitarian pauses” to Israel’s relentless army marketing campaign in Gaza.
“All of this is a work in progress,” Blinken said before leaving Turkey. “We don’t obviously agree on everything, but there are common views on some of the imperatives of the moment that we’re working on together.”
Blinken’s trip international relations got here as Israeli troops surrounded Gaza City and bring to an end the northern a part of the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Troops are anticipated to go into the town Monday or Tuesday, and are prone to face militants fighting boulevard via boulevard the usage of a limiteless community of tunnels. Casualties will most likely upward thrust on all sides in the month-old conflict, which has already killed greater than 9,700 Palestinians.
The best U.S. diplomat hopes that pauses in the conflict would permit for a surge of humanitarian assist to Gaza and the discharge of hostages captured via Hamas right through the militants’ fatal Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed greater than 1,400 other folks, most commonly civilians — whilst additionally fighting the war from spreading domestically.
“We’ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimize civilian casualties,” Blinken stated earlier than leaving Ankara. “We’re working, as I said, very aggressively on getting more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”
“We are very focused on the hostages held by Hamas, including the Americans, and we are doing everything possible to bring them home,” he added.
Blinken didn’t meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has been extremely essential of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an outlier amongst NATO allies in now not expressing complete support for Israel’s proper to protect itself.
As the Blinken-Fidan assembly were given underway, dozens of protesters from an Islamist staff waved Turkish and Palestinian flags and held up anti-U.S. and anti-Israel placards outdoor the Foreign Ministry. Police previous in the day dispersed a gaggle of scholars marching towards the ministry chanting “murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!”
Also Monday, about 150 other folks rallied outdoor the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, wearing a big banner that learn: “No to genocide!”
It was once the second one day of protests denouncing Blinken’s consult with. On Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Turkish rise up police outdoor the U.S.-Turkish Incirlik army air base in the southern town of Adana. Police fired tear gasoline and water cannon because the demonstrators attempted to move fields to go into the bottom.
Turkish officers, talking on situation of anonymity to speak about the talks, stated Fidan had advised Blinken to forestall the focused on of civilians in Gaza and their compelled displacement, and likewise press for a “full cease-fire.”
Blinken’s venture, his 2nd to the area for the reason that conflict started, has discovered simplest tepid, if any, support for his efforts to comprise the fallout from the war. Israel has rejected the theory of pauses whilst Arab and Muslim countries are as a substitute difficult a right away cease-fire because the casualty toll soars amongst Palestinian civilians beneath Israeli bombardments of Gaza.
U.S. officers are in search of to persuade Israel of the strategic significance of respecting the regulations of conflict via protective non-combatants and considerably boosting deliveries of humanitarian assist to Gaza’s beleaguered civilian inhabitants.
It remained unclear, on the other hand, if Netanyahu would comply with transient, rolling pauses in the huge operation to eliminate Hamas — or whether or not outrage amongst Palestinians and their supporters might be assuaged if he did.
Already Jordan and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors to Israel to protest its ways and the tide of world opinion seems to be turning from sympathy towards Israel in the aftermath of Oct. 7 to revulsion as pictures of dying and destruction in Gaza unfold all over the world.
On Saturday in the Jordanian capital of Amman, each the Egyptian and Jordanian overseas ministers seemed at a joint news convention with Blinken. The two stated Israel’s conflict had long past past self-defense and may now not be justified because it now amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian other folks.
That sentiment was once echoed via tens of hundreds of demonstrators who marched in the streets of global capitals over the weekend to protest Israel and condemn U.S. support for Israel.
From Turkey, Blinken headed to Asia the place the Gaza war will most likely proportion best billing with different world crises at a chain of occasions in Japan, South Korea and India — together with Russia’s conflict on Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear guns program.
On Sunday, Blinken flew from the occupied West Bank, the place he held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
When phrase unfold of Blinken’s arrival in the West Bank town of Ramallah, dozens of Palestinians became out to protest, keeping indicators appearing dripping blood and with messages that integrated, “Blinken blood is on your hands.” The assembly with Abbas ended with none public remark.
The Palestinian Authority administers semiautonomous spaces of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It has now not been an element in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Hamas seized keep watch over after successful in elections there a 12 months previous. Abbas himself is unpopular amongst Palestinians.
American forces in the area face a surge of assaults via Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and in other places. U.S. forces shot down some other one-way assault drone Sunday that was once focused on American and coalition troops close to their base in neighboring Syria, a U.S. reputable stated. From Baghdad Blinken traveled to Turkey.
The Biden management, whilst last the most powerful backer of Israel’s army reaction to Hamas’ assaults on Oct. 7, is an increasing number of in search of to make use of its affect with Israel to take a look at to mood the impact of Israel’s weeks of whole siege and close to round the clock air, flooring and sea attacks in Gaza, house to two.3 million civilians.
Arab states are resisting American ideas that they play a bigger position in resolving the disaster, expressing outrage on the civilian toll of the Israeli army operations and believing Gaza to be an issue in large part of Israel’s personal making.
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Associated Press author Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this record.
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