Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, met on Monday with relatives of Aysenur Eygi, an American-Turkish citizen who was killed in Samaria in September. An initial Israeli military probe suggested that the 26-year-old was “with high probability” struck by “indirect and unintended IDF fire, which was aimed at a main instigator.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said at the time that he was “outraged and deeply saddened” by the news and that Eygi’s “idealism led her to travel to the West Bank to peacefully protest the expansion of settlements.”
Blinken’s meeting with Eygi’s relatives wasn’t reflected on his official public schedule.
“Usually we don’t make meetings with private individuals public on the secretary’s schedule,” Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters at the department’s daily press briefing on Monday. “We put meetings—there are exceptions to that. We put meetings with foreign governments. We put meetings with organizations, but in the past when the secretary has met with private individuals, we don’t put it on his schedule.”
In this instance, when the family was comfortable with the department speaking publicly about the meeting, the department did so, Miller said.
“The secretary in that meeting offered once again his deepest condolences to the family for Aysenur’s death. It was a death that never should have happened, as he has said previously,” Miller said. “He told them that Israel has told us in recent days that they are finalizing their investigation into the matter, and he committed to them that as soon as we learn anything about the results of that investigation, we will report it to them.”
Miller added that the State Department doesn’t undertake its own investigations. “That would be in the remit of the Justice Department,” he said. “We have an independent Justice Department for a reason inside our government. So it’s ultimately something for the Justice Department to speak to, and the State Department can’t—can’t speak on behalf of an independent law enforcement agency as to what they may be doing or what they might—might do or might not do.”
