Blinken says rapprochement between Israel and Arab countries is "the best way to isolate Iran"
US chief diplomat Antony Blinken said Thursday in Cairo that "the best way to isolate Iran and its allies" would be a rapprochement between Israel and Arab countries, most of which do not recognise it.
"Israel's security and [regional] integration are linked to opening the way for a Palestinian state," the US secretary of state added, on the latest leg of his Middle East tour to prevent the Gaza conflict from spreading.
The Arab-Israeli rapprochement is isolating Tehran "and its allies who are doing so much damage [to the United States] and almost everybody else in the region," he said, referring to attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on ships in the Red Sea.
"I think this vision is very clear to many leaders" in the Middle East, he insisted.
In 2020, three Arab countries - Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco - signed agreements with Israel, following Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994.
Gravity of the Gaza conflict
The war raging in the Gaza Strip following the deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on 7 October interrupted a similar process initiated by Saudi Arabia.
"The conflict must stop for the situation to evolve," Blinken said.
Since the attack by Islamist militiamen on Israeli soil, which left some 1,140 people dead, mostly civilians, Israel has been shelling the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on a massive scale, and more than 23,300 people, mostly women and children, have already been killed.
Israel "demobilised a significant number of forces" deployed in Gaza, the US diplomat added.
Blinken, who passed through Israel, met in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi before flying back to the US at the end of a nine-nation tour of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as the occupied West Bank, to prevent the Gaza conflict from spilling over into the region.
