Antony Blinken Speaks To Reporters During Unannounced Visit To Iraq To Meet With PM Transcript

Yeah. Secretary, thanks for sharing the questions. Yesterday, President Joe Biden, when asked whether he was optimistic, he felt progress was being made towards getting Israel to agree to humanitarian policies and strikes. He gave a thumbs up and said yes. Based on your conversations with Israel on Friday, with Arab leaders yesterday and today, do you share the President’s optimism? Why hasn’t the deal been agreed to yet? And how do you get around Israel’s apparent categorical rejection of any kind of a deal like this? A deal that people, many people seem to think is a modest step?

Well, first, as we said, following my conversations with the Prime Minister and with the Israeli government, this is a process. Israel’s raised important questions about how humanitarian pauses would work. We’ve got to answer those questions. We’re working on exactly that. In fact, we agreed that our teams would get together, and they’re doing just that, including today, to work through the specifics, the practicalities of these pauses. Second, it’s important that the pause advance a number of things. One of them is hostages. We are intensely focused, the United States, Israel, every other country that has one of its citizens being held hostage by Hamas to bring them home.

(01:27)
Now, it’s important that as we’re engaged in pursuing humanitarian pause, this can be something that advances the prospect of getting the hostages back. It can also advance other things that we’re committed to doing, as is the government of Israel and other partners in the region, especially getting more humanitarian assistance to people who need it in Gaza. I’ll remind you, when we had conversations three weeks ago about starting humanitarian assistance, it was a process to actually get that moving, but we had a commitment to do that. It took some days to get the process in place. Since then, we’ve had trucks moving. We have about 100 trucks a day going in. That’s good, but it’s grossly insufficient. So now we’re working on raising that significantly so that more aid in a sustained way gets into Palestinians who need it. There again, humanitarian pause can also help advance that and create an environment in which we can do as much as possible for people who so desperately need the assistance.

[inaudible 00:02:29] yesterday, the Arab leaders said nothing short of a total ceasefire would be acceptable. Did you make any progress in convincing them that a humanitarian pause would be a reasonable compromise?

Well, I think everyone would welcome humanitarian pauses. There’s no doubt about that. There are obviously different views, including on the question of a ceasefire, but there’s no doubt from my conversations with all of our colleagues who were in Amman yesterday, that everyone would welcome the humanitarian pause because again, it could advance things that we’re all trying to accomplish, including getting hostages back, including getting a lot more assistance into Gaza, including getting people out of Gaza, citizens from other countries who seek to leave. We’ve had important progress there in recent days. There are also real complications that come along with it. We continue to work through them, but in each of these areas, the humanitarian pause or pauses could make a positive difference.

Michael?

Michael.

Thanks very much for taking my question, Michael Birnbaum from The Washington Post. Question about each of your visits today. Here in Iraq, I mean, what kind of steps did you talk about with the Iraqi Prime Minister, specific steps that they can take as a government to try to reduce the militia attacks and attempted attacks on US forces here? And looking back at Ramallah, you’ve said that you have a view for the Palestinian authority to have a potential governance role in Gaza. I wanted to ask what President Abbas’s view was of that today, and if he’s in favor, why do you think that’s a great idea given the generally low view of the Palestinian authority among Palestinians?

Well, first, with regard to Iraq, Prime Minister Sudani has spoken out clearly, in fact, he made an important statement about a week ago, October 23rd, condemning these attacks and making clear the imperative that they stop. And in addition, he is working with his own security forces and others to take necessary action to deal with these attacks and to seek to prevent them. So we talked about that. I can’t get into specifics, but this is a matter of Iraqi sovereignty. No country wants to have militia groups engaged in violent activity, that’s clearly against the interests of Iraq and its own sovereignty as well as against our interests. So I think we have a shared purpose and commitment in trying to make sure that these attacks don’t happen. And we also share the interest and an interest that’s shared with virtually everyone in the region to make sure that the conflict in Gaza doesn’t spread to other places, whether it’s here or elsewhere in the region. So everyone is looking to take the necessary steps, use their authority, use their influence to try to make sure that this stops doesn’t happen.

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With regard to the visit to Ramallah and the Palestinian Authority, look, they, and we, are very focused on the day of, even as we need to be thinking about the day after. And I think what’s clear is that with regard to the day after, with regard to future, Gaza, the West Bank, Palestinian views, Palestinian voices, Palestinian aspirations need to be at the center of that. And that’s what we focused on. The PA is playing a very important role right now in the West Bank in trying to keep stability there. That’s usually important because no one wants another front in the West Bank or anywhere else, and they’re really stepping up under very difficult conditions to do the necessary work. But if you project forward to the future, what we all agree is that in defining that future, in shaping that future, for Gaza, for the West Bank and ultimately for a Palestinian state, Palestinian voices have to be at the center of that. The Palestinian Authority is the representative of those voices, so it’s important that it play a leading role.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.