Rhino: Agencies – The US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to travel to the United Kingdom on Monday, a week after Britain suspended some arms export licenses to Israel over the potential use of those weapons in the war in Gaza.
Blinken will open the U.S.-UK Strategic Dialogue “to emphasize our special relationship,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Saturday.
Blinken will also meet with senior government officials to discuss issues including the Indo-Pacific region, the US-Australia-Britain defense pact known as OCOS, the situation in the Middle East and collective efforts to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.
Britain announced on September 2 that it had decided to immediately suspend 30 of its 350 arms export licenses to Israel, saying they were likely to be used for serious violations of international humanitarian law in the war against Hamas in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
The administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is under pressure from war critics to suspend some arms deliveries to Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the Middle East.
A U.S. official said in July that the Biden administration would resume shipping 500-pound bombs to Israel but would continue to refrain from supplying 2,000-pound bombs because of concerns about their use in Gaza.