ABU DHABI/AL OULA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Monday evening after a regional tour that included visits to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as part of a diplomatic initiative aimed at preventing the war in Gaza from spreading.
After his meetings with the Emirati leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, then with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the head of American diplomacy assured that these two countries were willing to continue the normalization of their relations with Israel but provided that there is a clear prospect of the creation of a Palestinian state.
“There is an obvious interest in the region to continue in this direction (of normalization, editor’s note), but for that the conflict must end in Gaza and there must also clearly be a concrete path leading to the creation of a Palestinian state,” Antony Blinken said in the Saudi oasis city of Al Oula.
Four Arab states have so far agreed to normalize relations with Israel following American mediation, within the framework of the “Abraham Accords”: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Negotiations in this direction with Saudi Arabia were interrupted when the conflict in Gaza broke out in October.
Antony Blinken, who stopped in Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, reported a certain regional consensus on a certain number of points, including the reestablishment of a unified Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza, and the pacification of regional relations.
“For this to happen, we must see the creation of an independent Palestinian state,” stressed the American secretary of state.
This is Antony Blinken’s fourth trip to the region since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
The head of American diplomacy is accompanied by the United States special envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, as Washington seeks to obtain regional support to counter attacks by the Houthis, allied with Iran, on commercial shipping .
“These Houthi attacks are harming populations around the world, especially the poorest and most vulnerable populations, including in Yemen and Gaza,” Antony Blinken said on Sunday in Qatar, specifying that nearly 20% of global maritime traffic had been disrupted.
The United States has assembled an international coalition of more than 20 countries to assist in efforts to protect ships in the Red Sea waters off the coast of Yemen, much of which is controlled by the Houthis.
(Reporting Simon Lewis; French version Stéphanie Hamel and Tangi Salaün)
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