US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday (27) that “there have been some promising signs” in recent days regarding an agreement to demilitarize Hamas.
“We are very focused on this. There has been some progress despite Hamas’ public announcements. But at the end of the day, we need to see this happen, and we are hopeful that in the next few days we can have good news about it,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox Newsaccording to a transcript released by the US State Department.
“I know that our partners in Egypt and Turkey are involved in this process,” he said.
“There were some promising signs over the weekend that we are getting closer to an agreement regarding their demilitarization. But that needs to happen. This whole project only works if Hamas is demilitarized. Until that happens, everything is in question,” the American secretary added.
declined to say whether the U.S. would support Israel’s resumption of military operations if a demilitarization agreement is not reached.
“Let’s hope we can avoid this. It’s not the outcome we want,” he said.
In mid-April, the , reached in October, as part of efforts to move forward with the , two Hamas sources said.
