US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting the leaders of Turkiye and Greece at the start of a week-long trip aimed at calming tensions that have spiked across the Middle East since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began in October, Reuters reports.

The Biden administration’s most senior diplomat held talks with Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Istanbul and is scheduled later to meet President Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

Blinken also hopes to make progress in talks on how Gaza could be governed if and when Israel achieves its aim of eradicating Hamas.