United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Qatar on Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour to push forward talks aimed at ending the 10-month-old Gaza war.
A US senior official traveling with Blinken in the Middle East criticized “maximalist” remarks attributed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on maintaining control of the Gaza-Egypt border, saying it was not helpful for reaching a ceasefire with Hamas.
“Maximalist statements like this are not constructive to getting a ceasefire deal across the finish line,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue.
Such remarks “certainly risk the ability of implementation-level, working-level, and technical talks to be able to move forward (once) both parties agree to a bridging proposal,” he said.
Blinken is scheduled to meet with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani following stops in Egypt and Israel.
The official said that Blinken stood by his public statement in Tel Aviv on Monday that Netanyahu had agreed to a US proposal to bridge the gaps on a ceasefire laid out on May 31 by President Joe Biden.
Netanyahu, in reported remarks to families of victims of attacks, said that Israel would insist on maintaining control of the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, which Israeli forces seized from Hamas during the war.
“We saw the prime minister’s comments, especially on some of these items. We’re not going to negotiate in public,” the US official said.
The official said that such “technical” issues would need to be resolved in further discussions.
“The only thing Secretary Blinken and the United States are convinced of is the need to get the ceasefire deal across the finish line,” the official said.
“There will be additional conversations on technical specifics, many of which, of course, are being discussed in the press, which is certainly not helpful to the process,” he said.
The US expects diplomacy to move forward this week between Israel and Hamas on reaching a ceasefire, despite uncertainties in particular about Hamas’s response, the official said.
“We fully expect this process to continue into this week,” the official commented, without confirming any formal meeting this week involving Israel and Hamas.
The White House said last week, when presenting the bridging proposal in Doha, that it expected new talks on finalizing the deal to take place later this week in Cairo.
Blinken arrived in Doha late on Tuesday for talks with Qatar’s emir after meeting the leaders of Egypt and Israel.
With AFP
