ANKARA-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held tough talks in Turkey on Monday aimed at soothing the anger of one of Washington’s most strategic but difficult allies about the bloodshed in Gaza.
Blinken’s first visit since Israel went to war with Hamas in reprisal for the militants’ October 7 attack comes with fury at both Israel and the West boiling over on the streets of Turkey and in the palace of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters who marched on an air base housing US forces in Turkey’s southeast hours before Blinken’s arrival Sunday. Erdogan himself was travelling across Turkey’s remote northeast Monday in a seeming snub of Washington’s top diplomat. Blinken’s closed-door talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara would have been packed with problems even before Israel launched a relentless bombing and expanding ground campaign aimed at eradicating Hamas.
The Hamas-run health ministry said nearly 10,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in more than four weeks of war in Gaza.
The operation started after the militants killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took over 240 hostages in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. The war threatens to have broad repercussions on Washington’s relations with Turkey -- a NATO member with a muscular foreign policy and stakes in conflicts across the Middle East.