Push by US for diplomatic truce offers no resolute
By Story Agencies, November 7, 2023United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met his Turkish counterpart as he continued a challenging Middle East tour aimed at easing regional tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.
Blinken met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan for two and a half hours on Monday morning in Ankara but was snubbed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Blinken’s main mission was to buy more time [for Israel],” Tamer Qarmoot, professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera. “And the Turks know this. That’s why he got this cold reception.” Blinken’s trip to Turkey follows on the heels of strained meetings with Arab leaders in Iraq, Palestine, and Jordan over the weekend.
Arab and Muslim leaders have expressed frustration over Washington’s staunch backing of Israel as it continues its monthlong assault on Gaza, killing nearly 10,000 people, more than a third of them children.
Washington has supported the need for a “humanitarian pause” to the fighting but has stopped short of joining much of the world in calling for a full truce.
Blinken’s mission, his second to the region since the war began, has found limited support for his efforts to contain the fallout. Israel has rebuffed the US push for a pause to the fighting, while Arab and Muslim nations have insisted on an immediate ceasefire to ease the soaring casualties in Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Ankara, suggested that Blinken and Fidan found few points of agreement.
“The US side tried to convince Turkish officials to put more pressure on Hamas and make it release the captives,” he said. “But the Turkish position was very clear on this matter. They said that the prisoner release should be mutual, where Hamas releases captives and Israel releases Palestinian prisoners.”
“Turkey also asked for an unconditional ceasefire and said there should be an international mechanism to observe the ceasefire, which Ankara would be the guarantor for,” Serdar continued. “But we haven’t heard anything about a ceasefire from Blinken. He has been using the phrase humanitarian pause and the Turkish side has told him that this is not enough.”
Turkey, which is a strategic US ally despite numerous foreign policy rifts, has been one of the region’s fiercest critics of Israel since the war broke out, accusing Israel of behaving like a “war criminal” and committing a “massacre”. On Saturday, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv, with Erdogan saying he had “written off” dealing with Netanyahu.
The Turkish leader has delivered equally stinging criticism of Western powers that are backing Israel amid the Gaza bloodshed. “Those who shed crocodile tears for the civilians killed in the Ukraine-Russia war are now quietly watching the killing of thousands of innocent children,” Erdogan said last month.