Kazakhstan joins the Abraham Accords

(AFP) Kazakhstan will announce Thursday its accession to the Abraham Accords, a senior U.S. government official told AFP, a symbolic move as the Central Asian republic already maintains diplomatic relations with Israel.

Donald Trump promoted during his first presidential term the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab countries, an initiative that crystallized in 2020 with the Abraham Accords, which were joined by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

This new accession has a symbolic character, since Kazakhstan has maintained diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992, a year after becoming independent from the USSR.

The president of this Muslim-majority republic is one of five Central Asian leaders who will meet with Trump at the White House this Thursday.

Under the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalized relations with Israel in 2020. Since then, no other country has joined the Republican tycoon's initiative.

Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, announced minutes earlier that one new country was joining the Abraham Accords, though he did not reveal which state he was referring to.

Saudi Arabia held talks with the United States to take the same step, which would be a historic milestone, as the kingdom is home to Islam's two holiest sites.

However, Riyadh halted this process when war broke out in the Gaza Strip following attacks by Hamas against Israel in October 2023.

Saudi Arabia insists it will not normalize relations with Israel without progress toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state, a move opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We have a lot of people joining the Abraham Accords now and we expect Saudi Arabia to join very soon," Trump said Wednesday at a business forum in Miami.