Blinken meets Erdogan at start of regional tour

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul. 

The meeting came at the beginning of a week-long trip by Blinken aimed at calming tensions across the Middle East, which have spiked since 7 October.

Earlier, Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met to discuss the situation in Gaza, as well as Turkey's process to ratify Sweden's membership of Nato, Ankara's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Biden administration's most senior diplomat's tour will include Arab states, Israel and the occupied West Bank, during which he will say that Washington does not want a regional escalation of the conflict.

A US official told Reuters that Washington wants countries in the region, including Turkey, to play a part in reconstruction, governance and potentially security in the besieged Gaza Strip after the war.