The United States plans a meeting early in 2023 between Israel and Arab nations that recognize it, a US official said Tuesday, while calling on Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s emerging new government to show “restraint”, according to the AFP news agency.
A senior US official said the United States plans a meeting "probably in the first quarter" of 2023 of foreign ministers from the so-called “Negev Summit” in March.
The first meeting brought to the Israeli desert the foreign minister of Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, and his counterparts from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, which normalized relations in 2020 in the so-called Abraham Accords, which were brokered by the Trump administration.
The accords are "near and dear to the heart of Prime Minister Netanyahu and so I imagine that he wants to continue to see that move forward," the US official said on condition of anonymity.
"I think Israel has to factor that in," the official added. "Depending on some of the things that Israel does, that may make it harder or easier for these countries to actually engage and participate and move forward, never mind bringing new countries into the process."
While the accords were an initiative of former US President Donald Trump, they have been backed by the Biden administration as well.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said shortly after he took office that the Biden administration supports the Abraham Accords.
The Biden administration has expressed hope that the Abraham Accords could be used to reboot talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, expressed hope last week that the next step would be a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, Netanyahu said such a deal would “effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
“And I believe we can get peace with other countries as well if we do that,” Netanyahu told the Examiner’s executive editor Seth Mandel, adding that a formal peace with the Saudis would “expand the circle of peace beyond our wildest dreams.”
He added that the ball is in Riyadh’s court, telling Mandel, “It’s up to the Saudis.”