Blinken Discussed Maritime Aid Corridor to Gaza in Cyprus

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken briefly stopped over in Cyprus on Sunday where a Cypriot proposal to establish a maritime aid corridor to Gaza was discussed, Cypriot officials said.

Blinken made the unannounced stopover over at Larnaca airport on his way to Turkey in a tour of the region. He met with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on board his aircraft.

During the meeting there was a discussion on unfolding developments in the Middle East as well as Cyprus’s proposal for a dedicated, one-way maritime corridor of a sustained flow of humanitarian aid from Cyprus to civilians in Gaza, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said in a statement.

Cyprus, the closest European Union member state to the Middle East, has been talking to its Middle East neighbors and EU partners on establishing the corridor which would be exclusively used for humanitarian aid.

Earlier Sunday, the Cypriot president said the modalities of how aid could be delivered was still being worked out.

“Ships cannot approach the sea area off Gaza so we are talking to the United Nations which will handle the aid and not Hamas,” Christodoulides told reporters.

(Reuters - Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by David Evans)