Israel says it hopes for ties with Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, but no deals imminent

JERUSALEM, 26 January 2022, (TON): Israel's top diplomat said “it hopes to build on its 2020 US-brokered accords with four Muslim nations and establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, but such deals would take time.”

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest two sites, and Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, have conditioned any eventual normalisation with Israel on the addressing of the Palestinians' quest for statehood on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

On Army Radio, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Israel is looking to "expand the Abraham Accords to additional countries" beyond the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

He said "if you're asking me what the important countries that we're looking at are, Indonesia is one of them, Saudi Arabia of course, but these things take time.”

Lapid added that smaller countries he did not identify could normalise relations with Israel in the coming two years.

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