Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Riyadh on Sunday to speak with Arab officials on the sideline of the Israel-Hamas War, reported CNN.
As negotiations between Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked, Blinken will hold multiple meetings, discussing critical issues including the hostages held by Hamas, humanitarian aid, a potential cease-fire, and a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the State Department announced Saturday.
Blinken will also stress the importance of avoiding the spread of the conflict and achieving peace and security, through “a pathway to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The spokesperson noted that Blinken would emphasis that it is “Hamas that stands in the way of a cease-fire for the Palestinian people.”
At the top of these discussions would be a potential hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, especially after the failure of the Qatari and Egyptian mediation in reaching an agreement due to differences on key demands.
Over a wide array of rounds of talks in Qatar and Egypt, they presented a six-week ceasefire and the release of some hostages held by Hamas in exchange for the liberation of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
In the meantime, American officials are pressing on Hamas to release about 40 of the 100 or more hostages it is holding, confirming that this would be the first step in securing a permanent cease-fire. Israel supports the proposal, while Hamas said, in a statement, that the movement “will study the proposal, and upon completion, it will submit its response.”
Blinken’s visit, set for Monday and Tuesday, comes after almost seven months after the eruption of war in Gaza.
In September, before Hamas’s attack on Israel, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that they are getting closer to a deal that could bolster the Washington-Riyadh security partnership.
During the war, Saudi officials have highlighted their insistence on recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud, the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, told the World Economic Forum in January that normalization would be impossible without an “irrevocable” pathway towards the state’s creation.
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