(Chania) The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, on his way to a new tour of the Middle East, insisted on Saturday in Greece on the need to avoid at all costs an extension of the conflict in Gaza, in particular on the border between Israel and Lebanon.
“We must ensure that the conflict does not spread,” he said after a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Chania (island of Crete) where he visited flash after a trip to Istanbul and an interview with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“One of the real concerns is the border between Israel and Lebanon and we want to do everything possible to ensure that there is no escalation,” he added before leaving Crete for Jordan.
After this brief stopover in Crete, Mr. Blinken must go to Jordan then to Israel, the occupied West Bank and other countries in the region to try to avoid a regional conflagration, three months after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
PHOTO EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have left 22,600 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which killed 1,140 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the Israeli death toll.
Influences and connections
“Much of the conversations we will have over the coming days with all of our allies and partners will be about what steps they can take using the influence and connections they have to ensure this conflict does not spread not,” stressed Antony Blinken.
He wants to call on his interlocutors to use their communication channels with Iran to convey that the United States is not seeking escalation, but that it will defend its interests when they are attacked, according to an American official speaking under condition of anonymity.
In Syria and Iraq, attacks on American military bases have increased in recent weeks and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, are increasing attacks in the Red Sea against commercial ships, in order to hinder international maritime traffic in “support” of the Palestinians.
In Istanbul, the meeting between MM Blinken and Erdogan, in one of the presidential residences on the Bosphorus, lasted more than 75 minutes, according to American diplomatic sources, after a first meeting of Mr Blinken with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan .
The latter, according to a diplomatic source, pleaded for “an immediate ceasefire” in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
Mr. Erdogan, who denounces the United States’ support for Israel and describes the latter as a “terrorist” state, had shunned Mr. Blinken’s previous visit to Ankara in November.
The discussions with the Turkish president focused on the situation in Gaza and Sweden’s entry into NATO, according to a State Department press release.
Civilian casualties
Mr. Blinken insisted to his host on “the need to prevent the conflict from spreading, to increase humanitarian aid, to reduce the number of civilian casualties, to work towards lasting regional peace and to move forward towards the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Furthermore, according to the brief press release, the American official called for “finalizing [le processus] of Sweden’s accession to NATO”, which still lacks the agreement of Turkey and Hungary.
For his part, in Crete, the head of the Greek government Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted in a press release on the “excellent level” of Greek-American relations and assured that “other positive progress will be recorded in the field of cooperation in matters defense”.
Greece is seeking to buy more advanced F-35 jets from the United States to counter what it sees as a Turkish threat.
Athens has strongly contested the possible sale of American F-16 fighter jets to Ankara due to long-standing territorial disputes with Turkey in the energy-rich Eastern Mediterranean region.
The American government is not hostile to the sale of F-16s, but Congress has opposed it so far, according to a State Department source, by making it conditional on Sweden’s entry into the NATO.