News Desk
Ahead of negotiations on Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Turkey amidst tense circumstances, following the announcement by the US military that it had dispatched a nuclear-powered submarine to the area.
Just hours before Blinken’s arrival on Sunday, hundreds of demonstrators marched on an air base in southeast Turkey that houses US forces. Police used water cannons and tear gas to scatter the demonstrators. In what appears to be a slight against Washington’s top diplomat, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan plans to travel across Turkey’s remote northeast on Monday. In the midst of the ongoing ground offensive in Gaza, Blinken has backed Israel while attempting to reassure regional players that Washington is focused on alleviating humanitarian suffering.
Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who gained international attention as a teenager in 2018 after being detained and imprisoned for striking and kicking Israeli Defence Force soldiers, was detained in the village of Nabi Salih, which is close to Ramallah in the West Bank. In a tweet, Tamimi was referred to as a “terrorist” by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister of national security, who applauded her arrest.
Other US officials are also occupied while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds negotiations in Turkey. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to speak over the phone with foreign leaders about boosting the amount of aid entering the region. After arriving in Israel on Sunday, CIA Director Bill Burns will meet with Mossad Chief David Barnea and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After that, it is anticipated that he will visit other nations in the area to meet with counterparts in intelligence. There, they will talk about matters like the state of affairs in Gaza, the US’s commitment to preventing both state and non-state actors from intensifying hostilities between Israel and Hamas, and support for hostage negotiations.
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