Blinken meets Jordan’s king as part of Mideast mission

Amman: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Sunday with Jordan’s king and foreign minister and visited a World Food Programme warehouse in Amman as he pressed ahead with an urgent Middle East diplomatic mission to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza from spreading.

On his fourth visit to the region in three months, Blinken stressed the need for Israel to adjust its military operations to reduce civilian casualties and significantly boost the amount of humanitarian aid reaching

Gaza while highlighting the importance of preparing detailed plans for the post-conflict future of the territory, which has been decimated by intensive Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives.

After a day of talks with Turkish and Greek leaders in Istanbul and Crete, Blinken met Sunday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi seeking buy-in for US efforts to

tamp down resurgent fears that the three-month-old war could engulf the region, ramp up aid deliveries to Gaza and prepare for the eventual end of hostilities.

Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel’s actions and have eschewed public support for long-term planning, arguing that the fighting must end before such discussions can begin.

They have been demanding an immediate cease-fire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket. Israel has refused and the US has instead called for specified temporary “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to get in and people to get to safety.

Blinken also toured the World Food Programme’s Regional Coordination warehouse in the Jordanian capital where trucks are being packed with aid to be delivered to Gaza through both Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.

“The efforts right here to collect and distribute food to people in need are absolutely essential,” Blinken said. “The United States has worked from day one to open access routes into Gaza.”

“We continue to work on that every single day, not only to open them but to multiply them, to maximise them and to try to get more assistance, more effectively,” he said. “We’re determined to do everything we possibly can to ameliorate the situation for the men, women and children in Gaza.”

The US has been pressing Israel for weeks to let greater amounts of food, water, fuel, medicine and other

supplies into Gaza, and the UN Security Council passed a resolution on December 22 calling for an immediate increase in deliveries.