Morocco will host the Abraham Accords summit in March, the new Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced on Monday that he plans to participate alongside his counterparts from Arab countries.
In a statement released by the Israeli ministry, Eli Cohen said the Abraham Accords summit would be hosted by Morocco in March, a meeting he plans to attend. However, the statement did not name any other countries. Israel has in the past cited Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan as part of normalization agreements dubbed the “Abraham Accords”, the same source said.
“Extending the agreements to other countries is not a question of if, but of whensaid Cohen, the minister who took office last week in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right coalition government, adding that ties between Israel and its current partners had yielded 2.85 billion dollars in trade in 2022 as well as a “significant contribution to regional security and stability“.
Recall that Benjamin Netanyahu, back in power as prime minister for a sixth term, has repeatedly expressed his wish to establish relations with Saudi Arabia, which shares the same concerns as those of Israel about Iran. By contrast, Riyadh has been resistant to normalization in the absence of progress in the quest for a Palestinian state.
In addition, the directors general of the foreign ministries of the countries participating in the March summit are expected to meet in Abu Dhabi next week, Eli Cohen said. Recall that last March, Israel hosted the Emirati, Bahraini, Moroccan and Egyptian foreign ministers, in addition to the American secretary of state, on the sidelines of the Negev summit.