Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, foreign ministry spokesperson Öncü Keçeli announced on Wednesday. The two top diplomats spoke about ongoing cease-fire negotiations in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and regional developments, according to Keçeli, who said the call had taken place at the request of the U.S. side.
Blinken returned to the region this week for his ninth visit since the start of the new round of conflict. On Tuesday, he met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
Earlier Tuesday, Blinken arrived in Egypt from Tel Aviv, where he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a U.S. “bridging proposal” to narrow the gaps between the two sides after talks last week paused without a breakthrough. He urged Hamas to accept the proposal as the basis for more talks.
The Palestinian resistance group has not definitively rejected the proposal but has said it backtracks from areas previously agreed upon and has accused Israel and its U.S. ally of spinning out the negotiations process in bad faith. After meeting President El-Sisi, Blinken is expected to head to Doha, which, alongside Washington and Cairo, has been helping mediate the on-off Gaza talks for months.
Blinken has called the latest push for a deal “probably the best, possibly the last opportunity” and said his meeting with Netanyahu was constructive. He added that it was incumbent on Hamas to accept the bridging proposal.
U.S. officials have yet to explain the proposal or its differences from previous versions. “There are questions of implementation and making sure that it’s clearly understood what each side will do to carry out its commitments,” Blinken said Monday.
However, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan criticized the latest developments, saying the U.S. bridging proposal that Netanyahu accepted raised ambiguities because it differed from what the group had previously agreed.
Months of on-off talks have circled the same issues, with Israel saying the war can only end with the destruction of Hamas as a military and political force and Hamas saying it will only accept a permanent, not temporary, cease-fire.
There are disagreements over Israel’s continued military presence inside Gaza, particularly along the border with Egypt, the free movement of Palestinians inside the territory and the identity and number of prisoners to be freed in a swap.
