• Wednesday, 25 December 2024

Israeli foreign minister visits Bahrain in historic first on Thursday

Israeli foreign minister visits Bahrain in historic first on Thursday
Israel's top diplomat Yair Lapid is set to travel to Bahrain on Thursday in what will be the first official visit by an Israeli foreign minister to the country. Together with his Bahraini counterpart Abdullatif al-Zayani, Lapid will inaugurate the Israeli embassy in Manama, the Foreign Ministry announced in Jerusalem on Wednesday. In addition, he will sign a number of bilateral agreements with the kingdom, according to the ministry. Bahrain's ambassador to Israel, Khaled Yousif Al Jalahma, took up his post in Tel Aviv last month. In September 2020, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates became the first Gulf countries to establish official ties with Israel, crossing a decades-old line drawn by most Arab states, which refused to establish relations with Israel before the resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians. Since then, Israel has also signed similar agreements with Morocco and Sudan to normalize ties. Previously, only two Arab states - Egypt and Jordan - maintained diplomatic relations with Israel.