Blinken to travel to UK Monday to discuss Middle East, Ukraine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to travel to the United Kingdom on Monday, the State Department said, a week after Britain suspended some arms export licenses with Israel over equipment that could be used in the war in Gaza.

In the trip slated to go through Tuesday, Blinken will open the U.S.-UK Strategic Dialogue, “reaffirming our special relationship,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, said on Saturday.

Blinken will also meet with senior government officials to discuss issues including the Indo-Pacific, the AUKUS defense pact between the U.S., Australia, Britain and the Middle East, and collective efforts to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Britain said on Sept. 2 it was immediately suspending 30 of its 350 arms export licenses with Israel, saying there was a risk such equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Israel’s war with Hamas in the densely populated Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

The administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed him, is under pressure from critics of the war to suspend some arms deliveries to Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally. A U.S. official said in July the Biden administration would resume shipping 500-pound bombs to Israel but would continue to hold back on supplying 2,000-poind bombs over concerns about their use in Gaza.

CIA Director William Burns, chief U.S. negotiator for an end to the war in Gaza, said in London on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the coming days.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by David Gregorio)