Kazakhstan is expected to be announced today as the latest country to join the Abraham Accords that have normalised relations between Israel and Muslim-majority nations, a senior US official said.
The central Asian republic has had diplomatic ties with Israel for decades, unlike the four Arab states that normalised relations with Israel under the original accords signed in Trump’s first term.
But with Trump aiming to shore up his fragile Gaza ceasefire deal, Washington is pushing to get as much support as possible behind a wider peace initiative.
The announcement is expected to come when Trump hosts Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the leaders of the other four central Asian republics at the White House, the US official said.
Kazakhstan government said its anticipated accession to the Abraham Accords represents a natural and logical continuation of the foreign policy course.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said earlier that a new country would join the accords, sparking initial speculation. “I’m flying back to Washington tonight because we’re going to announce, tonight, another country coming into the Abraham Accords,” Witkoff said at the America Business Forum in Miami.
Kazkahstan will be the first country to join since the original Abraham Accords in 2020, when the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco normalised ties with Israel.
Saudi Arabia had been in talks with the US on also normalising ties with Israel, in what would be a historic milestone as the kingdom is home to Islam’s two holiest sites.
But the Gulf kingdom stepped back after the Gaza war broke out following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
Saudi Arabia has long insisted it cannot normalise ties without progress towards an independent Palestinian state, a prospect long opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump said at the same forum in Miami on Wednesday that “we have a lot of people joining now the Abraham Accords and hopefully we are going to get Saudi Arabia very soon.”
He then added jokingly to an audience, “But I’m not saying that. I’m not.”
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