Blinken Asks Türkiye, Others to Persuade Iran to Avoid Escalation

The top U.S. diplomat yesterday reached out to Türkiye and other regional states to persuade Iran not to further escalate tensions in the Middle East, TURAN’s Washington correspondent reports.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has engaged in diplomatic efforts in the last 24 hours through a series of telephone calls with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and others, spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

Washington has been working to mitigate and contain escalation since the attacks of October 7, particularly about the threats Iran made in recent days. During the calls Blinken made it clear that escalation is not in anyone’s interest and that countries should convince Iran not to escalate.

“We have had other diplomatic engagements with countries in Europe and other countries in the world because we want to send a very unified message,” Miller said.

Asked by TURAN whether Blinken and Fidan had a chance to discuss Ukraine and Caucasus, Miller said the primary purpose of the call was to talk about Iran’s threats against Israel.  “There were other issues discussed, but I don’t want to get into those any further.”

Miller also reacted to Iran’s Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s latest statements against Israel-friendly Islamic governments and accusing them of “betrayal”:

“Obviously, his comments are ones that wouldn’t just be rejected by the United States but would be rejected by other countries in the region,” he told TURAN’s correspondent.