KIRYAT GAT, Israel: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that more countries are ready to normalize relations with Israel, but the decision would await a broader regional agreement.
Rubio, who was touring a US-led multinational center in Israel aimed at coordinating a ceasefire in Gaza, said that a sustained end to the war would encourage more countries to join the so-called Abraham Accords, under which a number of Arab countries normalized ties with Israel in 2020.
“We have a lot of countries that want to join” the accords, he said.
“I think there are some countries you could probably add right now if you wanted to, but we want to do a big thing about it, and so we’re working on it,” Rubio told reporters on a visit to Israel.
“So, I think that would be great, and I think that could be a byproduct of achieving some of this,” he said, referring to the Gaza ceasefire.
Rubio did not mention specific countries, saying that they needed to address their domestic audiences first, but said “there’s some bigger than others.”
Saudi Arabia had been in talks with the United States on normalizing ties with Israel, in what would be a historic milestone as the kingdom is home to Islam’s two holiest sites.
But the kingdom stepped back on normalization after war broke out in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
Both US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu see the Abraham Accords, which saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco forge ties with Israel, as a crowning achievement.
Rubio says more countries ready to recognize Israel
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Rubio says more countries ready to recognize Israel
- “We have a lot of countries that want to join” the accords, he said
- “I think there are some countries you could probably add right now if you wanted to”
Turkiye bus accident kills eight, injures 26: governor
ISTANBUL: A passenger bus rolled off a road in southern Turkey’s Antalya province on Sunday, killing eight people, a senior official said.
Images on state broadcaster TRT showed the vehicle lying on its side on an embankment on a highway slip road in Dosemealti, a district to the northwest of Antalya city center.
Provincial Gov. Hulusi Sahin said 26 people were injured, some of them critically. The DHA news agency reported that some passengers were thrown from the bus, which had traveled overnight from Tekirdag in Turkey’s northwest.
Antalya, a popular tourist destination on the Mediterranean, has been hit by heavy rain in recent days. “The ground was wet and there was also fog in the area. It’s not a place to speed, but it seems the bus was speeding,” Sahin told TRT.
