Israel’s cabinet has approved the establishment of an annual gathering of senior officials from the United States and five Middle Eastern countries.
The five middle eastern countries are Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt.
A statement by the Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s office said that the decision “institutionalised” the work of the Negev Forum, a six-party meeting held in Sde Boker in southern Israel’s Negev Desert in March 2022.
It said the Negev Forum would act on the basis of six working multilateral groups in the fields of food security and water, energy, tourism, health, education and tolerance, and regional security.
Among the four Arab countries in the forum, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco normalised ties with Israel in 2020, while Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace accord with Israel in 1979. (Xinhua/NAN)
