Most Arab states had long maintained that they could not establish ties with Tel Aviv until a separate Palestinian state was created.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has insisted that six Muslim-majority countries — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey– should join the Abraham Accords en masse as part of an effort to reach a peace deal with Iran, making Israeli ties a key condition. The remarks were the second time in recent days that the American leader tried to link the emerging deal with Iran to the accords, which were first signed by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September 2020, followed by Morocco and Sudan in later months.
On Saturday, Trump said he spoke to leaders of those countries about joining the set of agreements to normalise relations with Israel.
“I stated that, after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these countries, at a minimum, simultaneously sign onto the Abraham Accords,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
He said those countries would be “honoured” to have Iran as part of the accords once a deal to end the war is reached.
What Are The Abraham Accords?
The Abraham Accords are a set of agreements to normalise relations with Israel. In a historic diplomatic shift, Abu Dhabi and Manama signed it during Trump’s first term in the White House, breaking a longstanding taboo to become the first Arab states to recognise Israel in a quarter century. Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, helped broker the accords.
Later, in separate agreements, Morocco and Sudan joined the accord in 2020 and 2021, and, more recently, Kazakhstan joined in 2025. Without the accords, Egypt and Jordan were the only two Muslim-majority nations that formally recognised the state of Israel.
Most Arab states had long maintained that they could not establish ties with Tel Aviv until a separate Palestinian state was created.
Palestinian leaders have condemned the deals, saying they felt betrayed by their Arab brethren for reaching deals with Israel without first demanding progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state. The deals also led to protests in Pakistan and drew criticism from Iran, which labelled them as a betrayal of Palestinians and a threat to regional stability.
How Israel Gained From The Accord
The biggest prize in the accords for Israel was the agreement with the UAE, a major global oil producer and commercial and trade hub with diplomatic clout across the Middle East. Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi have since developed close economic and security ties, including defence cooperation and a free trade pact. But ties have been strained lately.
US’ Plan
Washington has long held out hope that momentum in areas such as trade, commerce and investment would lead to the accords being extended to other Arab states, above all, regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, the richest of them all.
But Riyadh has insisted there can be no normalisation with Israel without a clear path to the creation of a Palestinian state, which the most far-right government in Israel’s history rejects.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel in October 2023, precipitating a war in which Israel killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, Arab states have grown more estranged from Israel, and public opinion in Arab countries has become angrier.
Still, under both former President Joe Biden and Trump since his return to office this year, Washington has promoted wider Arab recognition of Israel as a key eventual goal in any future regional settlement to end the war.
