US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Saturday as part of a Middle East tour aimed at rallying support for Ukraine and allaying Israel's concerns over a possible Iran nuclear deal .
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Departing from Poland, where he accompanied US President Joe Biden for meetings aimed at consolidating Western support for Ukraine, Antony Blinken arrived at Tel Aviv International Airport in the evening.
The diplomat must stay until Monday in Israel, the first leg of his tour of the region which will also take him to the occupied West Bank, Morocco and Algeria.
The Secretary of State wants to show that the United States is not losing interest in the Middle East, even if Washington's attention seems above all to be turned towards China, and more recently Ukraine.
He hopes to obtain support for the efforts of the United States and NATO to counter the Russian offensive, in a context marked by the heavy economic consequences of the war, in particular the surge in energy prices and the threat of a shortage of wheat which could deal a very serious blow to the Arab countries.
"Abraham Accords"
Antony Blinken is due to meet on Sunday afternoon with his counterparts from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Egypt in Sde Boker, in the Negev desert (south).
The meeting was described as "historic" by the head of Israeli diplomacy Yair Lapid.
The Emirates normalized relations with Israel in 2020 under a series of US-brokered agreements known as the "Abraham Accords".
Bahrain and Morocco followed suit.
These agreements broke with decades of Arab consensus conditioning the establishment of relations with Israel with the resolution of the Palestinian question.
Besides his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Israel, Antony Blinken will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
Palestinians worry about being sidelined in the US-backed effort to strengthen ties between Arab countries and Israel.
American support had been greatly reduced by Donald Trump who closed the Jerusalem consulate for Palestinians.
US President Joe Biden has pledged to reopen it.
The consulate issue “will certainly be a point of discussion,” according to a State Department official.
Another subject that will be addressed by Antony Blinken: the negotiations in Vienna on Iranian nuclear power.
The United States and Iran are currently in the final stages of indirect talks aimed at reviving the 2015 agreement supposed to prevent Tehran from acquiring the atomic bomb, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions which are suffocating the Iranian economy. .
The agreement fell apart after Washington's unilateral withdrawal in 2018, decided by then-President Donald Trump, and the reinstatement of sanctions against Iran, which in response had gradually freed itself from the limits imposed on its program. nuclear.
"Affair of Days"
The conclusion of an agreement, in negotiation between the great powers, is a “matter of days”, affirmed Saturday the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, while the coordinator of the European Union responsible for supervising the talks with the Iran, Enrique Mora, is expected in the evening in Tehran.
US Foreign Ministry spokesman Ned Price said on Monday that a deal was "neither imminent nor certain".
The prospect of such an agreement worries Israel and American allies in the Gulf region who perceive Tehran as a threat.
In February, Naftali Bennett said he feared that the agreement would not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Tehran, for its part, denies wanting to acquire the atomic bomb.
After Israel, Antony Blinken will then travel to Morocco where he will meet senior officials as well as the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed ben Zayed.
With the latter, he will discuss relations with Russia, China and Iran, but also the meteoric rise in oil prices.
Great allies of the United States in the region, the Emirates are under pressure, like Saudi Arabia, to limit the surge in black gold prices in the face of the war in Ukraine, but have none for the moment. not expressed the will.
The United States also said last week “deeply disappointed” by the visit to the Emirates of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, supported by Moscow but politically very isolated since the start in 2011 of the conflict which ravaged his country.
