Biden aides in Middle East in diplomatic push for Syria, Gaza
Al Jazeera
Two-pronged diplomatic push sees Blinken visit Jordan, Turkiye, while Jake Sullivan holds talks in Israel, Qatar, Egypt.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Jordan, launching a crisis tour of the Middle East following the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The outgoing US diplomat, who is calling for an “inclusive” process to form Syria’s next government that protects minorities, touched down in the Red Sea city of Aqaba on Thursday, heading straight to a meeting with King Abdullah II before a trip to Turkiye later in the day.
Blinken’s trip comes days after opposition forces launched a lightning offensive spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda, ending five decades of brutal rule by the al-Assad family.
Announcing the trip, the State Department said Blinken would call for a Syria that is not “a base of terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours” – a nod to the concerns of Israel and Turkiye.
Since al-Assad’s flight to Russia on Sunday, Israel has attacked Syria hundreds of times, hitting airports, air defence facilities and other infrastructure, and deploying its military to the buffer zone along the occupied Golan Heights separating Syria and Israel since 1974.
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