LONDON (Reuters) – The head of the CIA, who is also the chief U.S. negotiator seeking an end to the Gaza war and release of hostages held by Hamas, said a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the next several days.
CIA Director William Burns was speaking at a Financial Times event in London alongside Richard Moore, head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy agency, the first time they had appeared together publicly.
After 11 months of conflict in Gaza, Burns is working for the United States with Qatar and Egypt to secure a ceasefire, and said there was ongoing work on “texts and creative formulas” for finding a proposal which satisfies both parties.
“We will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, and then we’ll see,” he said.
He added that it was a question of political will and he hoped leaders on both sides recognized “the time has come finally to make some hard choices and some difficult compromises”.
Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, while Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s health authorities have said, largely levelling the coastal enclave.
Burns and Moore had written a joint op-ed in the FT newspaper on Saturday before the event which highlighted the pair’s joint efforts to help Ukraine in its war against Russia.
They said “staying the course” in backing Ukraine was more important than ever and they vowed to further their cooperation there.
Discussing Ukraine’s offensive into the Kursk region of Russia where Kyiv has seized land, Moore called it an “audacious and bold” move to try and change the game.
“It’s too early to say how long the Ukrainians will be able to hang on in there (in Kursk),” he added.
While Burns called the offensive a “significant tactical achievement” for the Ukrainians, he added that he did not see any evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power was weakening.
(Writing by Jonathan Landay and Sarah Young; Editing by David Gregorio and Andrew Cawthorne)
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