Scoop: Kazakhstan to join Abraham Accords

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is expected to announce during a meeting with President Trump on Thursday that his country will join the Abraham Accords, U.S. officials tell Axios.Why it matters: While Kazakhstan and Israel have had full diplomatic relations for more than 30 years, the move is designed to reinvigorate the Abraham Accords as the U.S.-led framework for cooperation between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world, a senior U.S. official said. The big picture: Trump told Axios last month that with Israel badly isolated by the Gaza war, one of his priorities would be to restore international support for the Jewish state once it was over. U.S. officials say Thursday's announcement is meant as a first step in repairing Israel's standing in the Arab and Muslim world, and they believe adding more Muslim-majority countries to the Abraham Accords could bolster Israel's international legitimacy."This is going to show that the Abraham Accords is a club that many countries want to be a member of and it will be a step for turning the page on the war in Gaza and moving forward towards more peace and cooperation in the region," a U.S. official said.Between the lines: Thursday's announcement is not groundbreaking on its own. There's no history of conflict between Israel and Kazakhstan, nor any current restrictions on Israelis visiting or conducting business in Kazakhstan.For Kazakhstan, which also signed an agreement with the U.S. on critical minerals on Thursday, it's a chance to earn some goodwill in Washington.For the Trump administration, bringing regional players like Saudi Arabia or even Syria into the accords is a bigger priority, but much more delicate diplomatically.Behind the scenes: Tokayev will visit the White House on Thursday as part of a summit between Trump and the leaders of five Central Asian countries, all of which are majority Muslim.Ahead of the summit, Tokayev reached out to the White House and said he wanted to bring his country into the Abraham Accords, a U.S. official said. Tokayev said he wanted to upgrade his country's existing relations with Israel, benefit from further regional cooperation and integration, and send a signal of religious tolerance and the importance of dialogue, according to the official.During Trump's meeting with Tokayev, the two are expected to hold a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and announce Kazakhstan's intention to join the accords, the U.S. officials said.One official added that Trump wants to hold an official signing ceremony at the White House with the leaders of Israel and Kazakhstan, and ideally with the leaders of additional countries who would like to join the accords.Flashback: The normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco were Trump's key foreign policy achievement in his first term. But U.S. officials say the Trump administration wants to expand the original format to emphasize the promotion of regional cooperation and religious tolerance. What to watch: A U.S. official said the White House wants to build momentum on the Abraham Accords ahead of the planned visit by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington on November 18. During an economic conference in Miami on Wednesday, Trump gave a shoutout to the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Princess Reema bint Bandar, and told her he wants Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords.At the same time, U.S. officials acknowledge a Saudi-Israeli peace deal is still far away.

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