JERUSALEM: Israel said it will host a “historic summit” from Sunday of top diplomats from the United States and three Arab states with which it has normalised ties.

“At the invitation of Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, this upcoming Sunday and Monday... a historic diplomatic summit will be held in Israel,” the foreign ministry said on Friday.

A series of diplomatic meetings would be attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts from the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, it said, without giving further details.

The United Arab Emirates 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 normalise ties with Israel although it has yet to finalise 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.

But the Arab countries said they were motivated by economic benefits of ties with Israel. The upcoming talks come against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that has sparked wider security concerns and sent oil and food prices soaring.

It also follows a three-way summit hosted by Egypt on Tuesday at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the UAE’s de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2022