U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that he expects his department to announce sanctions on the Muslim Brotherhood as “early as this next week.”
Speaking at a year-end press conference at the State Department, Rubio said that he could not preview which parts of the Brotherhood might face sanctions.
“I’m not going to comment on which segments of the Muslim Brotherhood—as you know, there are different chapters, for lack of a better term, and individuals spread throughout the world,” the secretary said.
“There’ll be announcements very soon on that, probably not today. Early this next week,” he said.
Many of the questions posed to Rubio focused on issues in the Western Hemisphere, including the Trump administration’s ongoing confrontation with the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Rubio also gave updates on the efforts to advance the Trump administration’s peace plan for Gaza.
“No one is arguing that the status quo is sustainable in the long term, nor desirable,” he said. “That’s why we have a sense of urgency about bringing phase one to its full completion, which is the establishment of the Board of Peace and the Palestinian technocratic authority or organization that’s going to be on the ground and then the stabilization force comes closely thereafter.”
The creation of those three bodies are key elements of the Trump administration’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, but there are few details about who would lead those organizations, what countries might participate and when they will form.
Rubio said that he expects them to be formed within the year.
“All those things happen, boom, boom, boom, 1-2-3, they have to happen very quickly, not a year from now,” Rubio said. “This is something we’re aiming at very soon.”
Rubio said that Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are meeting with U.S. officials in Miami today to discuss the peace plan. Egypt is also reportedly taking part in those talks.
