Blinken arrives in Turkey on first leg of Middle East tour
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Transcript
00:00 Kedevan Ghorjasani, our International Affairs Editor, joins us in the studio.
00:03 Kedevan, if we understand correctly, Blinken's first stop on his tour, if you will, will be
00:07 Turkey and Greece. However, a major leg is going to be looking at the tensions between Israel and Gaza.
00:13 Yeah, absolutely. He'll be going after Turkey and Greece to Israel. He's also going to be
00:18 visiting the West Bank, as well as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. So really,
00:24 all the key players in this conflict, Tony Blinken wants to speak to those leaders. And you did
00:32 mention that one of the priorities for the US was to try to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
00:39 That was going to be the sort of focus of this trip that has been planned for a couple of weeks
00:45 now. But of course, the recent events in the region, whether it's in Lebanon, whether it's in
00:50 Iraq, the play of Iran in this and the Red Sea has sort of shifted the focus to really trying
00:58 to contain this conflict to where it is right now. And the US knows that while they have some sway
01:04 over Israel as Israel's number one partner, they need those Arab leaders to help them in trying to
01:11 put pressure or to contain some of the other players in this region, mainly, of course,
01:18 Iran, which is sort of pulling the strings of much of these events. They back the Houthis
01:23 in Yemen and in the Red Sea. They back Hezbollah in Lebanon and they back Hamas. So Iran is a big
01:30 player. And of course, the US has no real sway over the Iranians. So they need the help of all
01:36 these Arab leaders. They also are going to be having some tough discussions. And when I use
01:42 those words, those are the US words on what Andy was talking about, the Galant plan as to what
01:48 happens next. Those are going to be some difficult discussions because the US and Israel are not
01:54 exactly seeing eye to eye on those topics. But we'll see what comes out of there.
01:57 Ketavan, you made reference to Hezbollah. Let's speak about the leader, Nasrallah, Hassan Nasrallah,
02:02 I should say, who spoke earlier today. This time his rhetoric has been beefed up, if you might,
02:07 and it's threatening towards the US and Israel. Yes, there's been definitely a shift of
02:12 tone because this is his second speech this week. He spoke first on Wednesday and he was reacting,
02:18 of course, to the killing of the Hamas number two in Lebanon, in a Hezbollah stronghold. And
02:25 in Wednesday's speech, it seemed that he was trying to sort of balance things out,
02:30 trying to distance a little bit Hezbollah and making this seem as something that is
02:34 strictly between Israel and Hamas, though he did express support for Hamas. But it seemed that he
02:42 was trying to play both sides, if you will, and not jump right into a conflict. That has completely
02:48 changed with this second speech. He had some threatening words for Israel. He said that
02:55 residents of northern Israel will be the first to pay the price of war. He also said that all of
03:02 Lebanon would be exposed if Hezbollah does not react to the assassination of the Hamas leader,
03:08 a warning that if Israel succeeds in Gaza, southern Lebanon is next. So some warning words
03:15 from Hassan Nasrallah. We'll see if that really turns into a real escalation of violence on that
03:22 border. We've seen violence pretty much every day on that border, but it was more of a simmering
03:27 violence rather than a full-out conflict. Also threatening words towards the United States,
03:33 talking about Iraq specifically. He said that this was a historic opportunity to get rid
03:39 of the presence of the United States in Iraq. So the Hezbollah leader seemingly looking to
03:46 beef up at least the rhetoric. We'll see if the actions follow that rhetoric.
03:51 All right, Kelvin, thank you very much indeed.