CAIRO: US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi discussed negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza on Tuesday and agreed to remain in close coordination in the coming hours, the White House said.
Negotiators were trying on Tuesday to clinch agreement on the final details of a ceasefire in Gaza after marathon talks in Qatar, with the involved parties saying a deal was closer than ever. Both Egypt and the US are mediators in the talks.
Democrat Biden, whose administration has been taking part alongside an envoy of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, has said a deal was close.
“Both leaders committed to remain in close coordination directly and through their teams over the coming hours,” the White House said in a statement after the call between Biden and El-Sisi.
“Both leaders emphasized the urgent need for a deal to be implemented,” the White House added.
Ceasefire talks have previously faced hurdles.
The White House said the two leaders also discussed surging humanitarian aid in Gaza where Israel’s military assault in the last 15 months has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also triggering accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.
The assault has also displaced nearly Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population and caused a hunger crisis.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023 , when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.
Egypt’s El-Sisi, Biden discuss Gaza ceasefire, hostages-for-prisoners swap deal, Egypt presidency says
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Egypt’s El-Sisi, Biden discuss Gaza ceasefire, hostages-for-prisoners swap deal, Egypt presidency says
- They also discussed a hostages-for-prisoners exchange deal
High-level Turkish team to visit Damascus on Monday for talks on SDF integration
- The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal
ANKARA: A high-level Turkish delegation will visit Damascus on Monday to discuss bilateral ties and the implementation of a deal for integrating the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into Syria’s state apparatus, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.
The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal. But Ankara accuses the SDF of stalling ahead of a year-end deadline.
Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement.
Last week Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara hoped to avoid resorting to military action against the SDF but that its patience was running out.
The Foreign Ministry source said Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and the head of Turkiye’s MIT intelligence agency, Ibrahim Kalin, would attend the talks in Damascus, a year after the fall of former President Bashar Assad.
TURKEY SAYS ITS NATIONAL SECURITY IS AT STAKE
The source said the integration deal “closely concerned Turkiye’s national security priorities” and the delegation would discuss its implementation. Turkiye has said integration must ensure that the SDF’s chain of command is broken.
Sources have previously told Reuters that Damascus sent a proposal to the SDF expressing openness to reorganizing the group’s roughly 50,000 fighters into three main divisions and smaller brigades as long as it cedes some chains of command and opens its territory to other Syrian army units.
Turkiye sees the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and says it too must disarm and dissolve itself, in line with a disarmament process now underway between the Turkish state and the PKK.
Ankara has conducted cross-border military operations against the SDF in the past. It accuses the group of wanting to circumvent the integration deal and says this poses a threat to both Turkiye and the unity of Syria.
