site.btaUS Secretary of State Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan Confer in Ankara

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Monday with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara, the Anadolu Agency reported. Blinken arrived late on Sunday night in the Turkish capital to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip with the Turkish Foreign Minister.

The Aksam newspaper noted that Blinken was not received according to the protocol for foreign guests of such a level. The publication’s headline calls this reception "a protest that is comparable to a slap in the face".

According to the newspaper, the lighting in the VIP hall of Ankara Esenboğa Airport was turned off. The Secretary of State was met only by US Ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake, Ankara's Vice Chancellor Namik Kemal Zeybek, and diplomat Yaprak Balkan.

This is the first time such a thing has happened in Turkiye, the newspaper noted.

Aksam also reported that on one of the bridges on Blinken's route to the Turkish Foreign Ministry building, residents hung a poster with the face of Abu Ubaida, military spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas).

The US Secretary of State's visit to Turkiye comes as part of his second tour of the Middle East since Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented attack on the Jewish state on October 7. After the attack, Israel launched an intense air and ground offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 9,000 people, according to health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza.