More than 33 years after establishing official diplomatic ties with Israel, Kazakhstan says it will join the so-called Abraham Accords, which formalised ties between Israel and several Arab countries.
The announcement came on Thursday ahead of a meeting between United States President Donald Trump and the leaders of Central Asian countries.
“Our anticipated accession to the Abraham Accords represents a natural and logical continuation of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy course – grounded in dialogue, mutual respect, and regional stability,” Kazakhstan’s government said in a statement, according to the AFP news agency.
Earlier in the day, US envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff had announced that another country would join the normalisation deals without identifying it.
“Abraham Accords are big. I’m flying back to Washington tonight because we’re going to announce, tonight, another country coming into the Abraham Accords,” Witkoff said.
It is not clear how joining the accords will affect the already established Kazakh-Israeli ties. The countries established diplomatic relations in 1992, shortly after Kazakhstan gained independence from the Soviet Union.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Kazakhstan in 2016, and the two countries have several bilateral agreements.
The announcement comes at a time when Trump is promoting himself as a peacemaker after brokering the tenuous ceasefire in Gaza, despite the daily deadly Israeli violence against Palestinians and the escalation of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
Kazakhstan appears to be pushing to deepen its ties with the US as its President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev visits Washington. On Thursday, the two countries signed a cooperation deal over critical minerals.
During his first term, Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, a series of deals that formalised ties between Arab countries – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco – and Israel.
The push shattered Arab states’ consensus over the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which conditioned recognition of Israel on the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has categorically rejected that “land for peace” framework, pushing instead for deals with Arab countries that bypass Palestinians.
Former President Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump, made expanding the deals a priority in his approach to the Middle East early on.
But the agreements – brokered between countries that were never at war – did little to resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the decades-long occupation that leading rights groups say amounts to a system of apartheid.
Still, the normalisation deals withstood the two-year war in Gaza, which saw Israel flatten much of the territory and kill more than 68,800 Palestinians.
The UAE and other countries involved in the agreements have maintained their trade and security ties with Israel.
In recent months, Trump has repeatedly said he hopes that Saudi Arabia will join the accords. But Saudi officials have stressed their commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative.
