US urges Turkiye and allies to help de-escalate Middle East tensions

Shafaq News/ US Ambassador to Turkiye Jeff Flake indicated that the US is urging Ankara and other allies with ties to Iran to help ease Middle East tensions.

Recent Israeli assassinations of Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukr, in Beirut and Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran have escalated regional tensions. Iran and Hezbollah have vowed retaliation, while the US has pledged support for Israel in the event of further attacks.

"We ask all of our allies that have any relations with Iran to prevail on them to de-escalate, and that includes Turkey," Flake said at a round-table with journalists in Istanbul.

"They're doing what they can to make sure that it doesn't escalate," he said of Washington's Turkish interlocutors, affirming that they "seem more confident than we are that it won't escalate".

US-Turkiye relations have been strained by the US alliance with Syrian Kurds, whom Turkiye considers terrorists, and Turkiye's purchase of Russian S-400 defenses, which led to US sanctions and its removal from the F-35 jet program.

However, Flake noted that he believes US-Turkey relations are "in a better place than we've been in a while," highlighting the "useful role" Turkiye played in the significant prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia since the Cold War in Ankara at the start of August.

In turn, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that calls from France, Germany, and Britain—collectively known as the European Troika—for Tehran to show restraint in its response to Israel "lack political logic and contradict international law principles."