A hostage deal is “closer than we’ve ever been,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Monday afternoon interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, carefully noting the deal’s been close before but fell through.Â
Blinken reiterated the deal’s framework is based on the agreement President Biden put forward in May, though he declined to discuss any of the specifics.Â
When Biden put out the framework, according to Blinken, he made clear that during the first six weeks of the phased agreement, the conflict will stop, and Israel will pull back its forces and release some hostages in exchange for the release of hostages.Â
During this time, humanitarian assistance will surge into Gaza, and partners will try to finalize an agreement on an enduring ceasefire.Â
“We’ve done a lot of work on that, and we haven’t waited to get to the ceasefire itself,” Blinken said. “We’ve done a lot of work with Arab partners, with Israel, with others to try to get an understanding on what would follow, basically a post-conflict plan, so that the vacuum that’s there – when Hamas is effectively not in charge and Israel pulls out – is filled by something that can run Gaza effectively.”
Blinken said Brett McGurk and Steve Witcoff, the current and incoming Middle East envoys, have been ” full partners” in this phase of the negotiations, calling Witcoff a “terrific partner.”
Trump want’s deal to go forward
President-elect Trump also made clear he wants to see the deal go forward before next week’s inauguration, he added, saying it’s important to have Witcoff a part of the negotiations because all parties want to make sure the Trump administration will continue to back the deal Biden put on the table.
Witcoff’s participation created that confidence, according to Blinken.Â
“This has been a very good partnership, and we hope that together we get this over the goal line,” he said.Â
Blinken described the region as a “dramatically transformed Middle East” with Hezbollah destroyed, the Assad regime in Syria gone and Israel’s war with Hamas potentially over.Â
Iran’s been “put on its back feet in ways that we haven’t seen before,” he told Mitchell. “Iran is at a point where, in terms of the fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon, it could upgrade that material to bomb-grade quality in a matter of a week or two.”
However, as Mitchell pointed out, Iran doesn’t have weaponization yet and that would take a lot longer.
“Look,” Blinken began, “Iran is going to be faced with decisions of its own of how it wants to move forward, but I think the incoming administration would have an opportunity precisely because Iran’s on its back feet – the – it’s suffering economically in a terrible way. Its people, I think, are disputing so much of what the regime has done, particularly in meddling in the affairs of other countries throughout the region.”
According to Blinken, this is maybe a moment of opportunity to “resolve in an enduring way the nuclear challenge posed by Iran” and “the actions that Iran takes throughout the region.”
Everyone is determined that Iran not have a nuclear weapon, Blinken said, though “you want to do that in a way that’s enduring.”
If an enduring ceasefire in Gaza is reached, Blinken said it’s also a moment where there can be some “greater agreement on a pathway forward for Palestinians to realize their political rights.”
“A moment of genuine integration in the region where Israel normalizes its relations with everyone, including Saudi Arabia, it’s integrated into a regional security architecture that further marginalizes and isolates Iran and betters the lives of people throughout the region,” Blinken said.
“There is a huge opportunity here, and everything that we’ve been able to set in motion or support in the last couple of years has moved us to this point.”Â
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