Grave situation in Gaza requires urgent attention, Fidan tells Blinken

WASHINGTON

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken that the situation in Gaza is grave and requires urgent attention as he called for an immediate ceasefire and uninterrupted humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.

Noting that many important regional issues, especially the Israeli massacres in Gaza, are taking place at the same time, Fidan said, "The international community has failed to stop the suffering of innocent people. People in Gaza are in urgent need of humanitarian aid," ahead of his meeting with Blinken at the State Department.

Fidan underlined the necessity to cooperate with the U.S. and other countries to ensure a ceasefire in Gaza and to provide uninterrupted humanitarian aid.

Many issues, such as Ukraine and Black Sea security, as well as the current state of NATO following Sweden's membership were also discussed during the meeting.

Blinken, for his part, said that it remained up to Hamas to accept a ceasefire with Israel as hopes dimmed for a new truce in the five-month-old war.

"The issue is Hamas," Blinken said, a day after U.S. President Joe Biden called in his State of the Union address for an "immediate" six-week truce that would allow humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Gaza and free hostages.

"The ball is in their court. We're working intensely on it," he said.

Blinken also thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Fidan for the approval of Sweden's NATO membership.

Fidan is currently on a two-day trip to the U.S. to engage in conversations with high-ranking U.S. officials regarding bilateral relations and regional and international matters, with a specific focus on the situation in Gaza.

During his visit to Washington to attend the seventh meeting of the Türkiye-U.S. Strategic Mechanism, Fidan also conferred with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Benjamin Cardin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Phil Gordon, the National Security Advisor to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

Additionally, Fidan was due to address Türkiye's request to rejoin the F-35 joint strike fighter program, from which it was expelled in 2019 following its acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system.

In January, then the third-highest ranking U.S. diplomat, Victoria Nuland, and White House spokesman John Kirby suggested that Ankara's return to the F-35 program could be possible if concerns regarding the S-400 were addressed.

Türkiye has recently moved closer to acquiring a fleet of F-16 fighter jets from the U.S. as the draft offer and acceptance letters were officially received.

The finalized deal, valued at $23 billion, will see Türkiye acquire 40 new F-16s along with upgrades to 79 of its existing fleet, following recent approval from the U.S. Congress.