US had no prior knowledge about Hezbollah pager blasts in Lebanon: Blinken

Cairo, Sep 18 (IANS) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday made it clear that the United States had no prior knowledge of Tuesday’s incident in Lebanon which saw pagers of over 4,000 Hezbollah members explode, resulting in 12 deaths till now.

“The United States did not know about, nor was it involved in these incidents. We are still gathering the information and gathering the facts,” Blinken told reporters during a joint press conference in Cairo along with Egyptian Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

The Cairo visit marks Blinken’s 10th trip to the region since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, last year. However, he is not scheduled to visit Israel this time around.

“Broadly speaking we have been very clear and we remain very clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we are trying to resolve in Gaza, to [not] see it spread to other fronts. It is clearly not in the interest of anyone involved to see that happen and that is why, again, it is imperative that all parties refrain from any actions that could escalate the conflict,” said the US Secretary of State.

From Egypt, Blinken will travel to Paris on September 19 to meet with French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to discuss the Middle East, Ukraine, and other shared priorities. He is also scheduled to meet French President Emmanuel Macron.

A few hours after the explosion of pagers in Lebanon on Tuesday, Washington had denied having any kind of involvement in the incident.

“We are gathering information on this incident. I can tell you that the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance. And at this point, we are gathering information,” US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said during the department press briefing.

Citing that Washington did not want to either comment or speculate about the impact of the incident, especially in its early stages, the State Department Spokesperson had reiterated that the overall policy of the US remains consistent on the issue.

“We do want to see a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. We want to see one that allows the tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced from their homes and the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced from their homes to be able to return home. And that’s what we are continuing to pursue,” said Miller.

–IANS

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