Egypt’s foreign minister will join groundbreaking talks in Israel from Sunday alongside counterparts from the US and three other Arab countries with ties with Israel, an Israeli official said.
Sameh Shoukry will join US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco for a series of meetings hosted by their Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, an Israeli official told AFP on Saturday.
The two-day event will be held against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a conflict that has sparked wider security concerns and sent oil and food prices soaring.
It also comes as the US is close to reaching an agreement with Iran to restore the 2015 accord limiting Tehran’s nuclear activities in return for removing sanctions on the country.
The six foreign ministers would meet Sunday afternoon at a hotel in Sde Boker, a town in the southern Negev desert, the Israeli foreign ministry said. A series of Monday morning meetings are expected to then be followed by statements, the ministry said.
The UAE forged diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020 under a series of US-brokered deals known as the Abraham Accords.
Bahrain and Morocco followed suit, while Sudan also agreed to normalize ties with Israel, although it has yet to finalize a deal.
The agreements, reached under former US president Donald Trump, broke with decades of Arab consensus that there would be no relations with Israel while the Palestinian question remains unresolved.
The Israeli meeting follows a three-way summit hosted by Egypt on Tuesday at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry speaks at a joint press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, on Aug. 4, 2019. Foreign ministers of Iraq, Egypt and Jordan held a meeting on Sunday in Baghdad aimed at boosting Arab relations and seeking to ease tension in the Middle East region. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood)
