Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia next week to meet with regional partners as talks between Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked, the State Department announced Saturday.
“The Secretary will discuss ongoing efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages and how it is Hamas that is standing between the Palestinian people and a ceasefire,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. “The Secretary will also emphasize the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading and discuss ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace and security in the region, including through a pathway to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel.”
Despite months of talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt, Hamas and Israel have failed to reach an agreement on a ceasefire and hostage deal over differences on key demands.
The latest framework presented over several rounds of talks in Qatar and Egypt includes a six-week ceasefire and the release of some hostages held by Hamas in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Hamas said Saturday it had received a response from Israel over its position on the ceasefire talks. “The movement will study this proposal, and upon completion of its study, it will submit its response,” it said in a statement.
Blinken’s trip, set for Monday and Tuesday, comes after he met with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month in Jeddah to discuss efforts to release the hostages held by Hamas.
The top American diplomat told CNN on Friday that it could be possible to roll out a framework for the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia along with a two-state solution proposal for Israel and the Palestinians before a ceasefire is in place.
“Ceasefire or not, we’ll continue to make these possibilities known. But in order to actually realize this, there’s going to have to be an end of the conflict in Gaza,” Blinken said in an interview with CNN’s Kylie Atwood. “And as I said, there’s also going to have to be a resolution to the Palestinian question, or at least an agreement on how to resolve it.”
US officials previously said the negotiations to secure a ceasefire had to reach an agreement before any further regional efforts could manifest.
CNN’s Simone McCarthy, Jeremy Diamond, Eugenia Yosef, Alex Marquardt and Mostafa Salem contributed to this report.
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