85962 - Transcription: America’s G7 position regarding ceasefire

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athina Kehagias

Antony Blinken’s statement at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ conference in Tokyo is extremely interesting. Why? Because we know that he went to all the countries of the Middle East and made various efforts to achieve a ceasefire, there are some who interpreted it as a failure and did not understand what is the real aim of America in the region. Whereas now, with this statement he made, he clarified a certain context. What is the idea? He says the following and it’s very simple. Those who want an immediate ceasefire ought to explain to us what they are going to do about Hamas wanting to repeat again and again what it did on October 7th. So what does he mean by that? He means something that Israel says as well, if we let them, they will do the same thing again. Therefore, we have to clarify the context and of course, even if simultaneously we want a humanitarian aid taking place, we want to be able to support the civilians, however this case has to evolve at the same time, because we cannot leave it as is, with more than 200 hostages to consider that since this move has been made, that is enough. So what are we hearing in actual fact? We hear that we all want a minimization of costs, we all want this war situation to end quickly, but simultaneously we want a result, because we do not want the repetition of this act of barbarism. Consequently, when we hear that statement, right after his time in the Middle East, we know how America deeply feels about the situation and what it says at a diplomatic level. Therefore it is important not to think that there are fundamental differences, that this struggle for the release of the hostages continues and is not about to stop abruptly, because simply some who have not analyzed the situation, do not see what can occur in the future, because in actual fact we are already thinking about the future and we want to configure this situation, so that the initial conditions of the future, to be those which would allow a stability and essentially an upgrowth.