US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Istanbul this Friday in what is the first stop of a tour of nine countries in the region, dedicated to the situation in Gaza, and which will last until next Thursday.
Blinken's plane landed at Istanbul airport at 7:10 p.m. (local time) and was received by a senior official of the Turkish Foreign Ministry with the rank of ambassador and US consular authorities, reports the Turkish Anadolu agency.
Blinken's meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, will take place this Saturdayand the American diplomat is also expected to be received by the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan supporters celebrate in the streets of Istanbul
The main issue on Blinken's agenda, that tomorrow he will continue his trip to Greece and then to Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Egypt, is the situation in Gaza, the need to bring humanitarian aid to the Strip and the release of the hostages held by the Islamist group Hamas.
However, He will also talk with his interlocutors about “the final steps for Turkey to ratify Sweden's accession to NATO.”“, as clarified yesterday by the spokesman for the Secretary of State, Matthew Miller, in Washington.
Erdogan has insisted on linking this ratification, which will be voted on in Parliament in mid-January, with the sale of F-16 fighters to Turkey, blocked by the US Congress.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stolteneberg (R) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
The Turkish president has already warned that the attitude of Parliament, where his party (the Islamist AKP) and its coalition partner (the ultranationalist MHP) have a majority, will be “more positive” if an agreement is reached on combat aircraft.
From Istanbul, Biden will fly to Crete, where he will also meet tomorrow with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis., with whom he will talk, above all, about the war in Ukraine.
EFE and AFP
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