WASHINGTON — US hostage envoy Adam Boehler is hosting counterparts from around the world for a summit this week at a Montana resort to discuss collaborative efforts to combat hostage taking.

“The meeting at Yellowstone is to work together as sovereign nations to stop those that take hostages in their tracks. This area is one of the many beautiful places in the United States and is called Big Sky Country. It symbolizes freedom and President Trump’s promise to bring all Americans home,” Boehler told The Times of Israel.

The Times of Israel obtained an invitation sent to participants and confirmed with several countries that are sending representatives.

Some of them reached out to Washington over the weekend to confirm that the summit was still on, though, after the White House revealed on Friday that Boehler had withdrawn his candidacy to serve as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, a Western diplomat told The Times of Israel.

Boehler is continuing to work on the issue, but with a lower-level title that doesn’t require Senate confirmation, which may have been an uphill battle after he became the first-ever US official to meet with Hamas members, to try and negotiate the release of five Israeli hostages with US citizenship who are still held in Gaza.

Those talks were coordinated with US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff, but Israel was not fully informed and directed its ire at Boehler, with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer subsequently lobbying US officials for the hostage envoy to be sidelined, according to a senior US........

© The Times of Israel