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”
Over 2,200 Daesh detainees transferred to Iraq from Syria: Iraqi official
- Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists
BAGHDAD: Iraq has so far received 2,225 Daesh group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.
They are among up to 7,000 Daesh detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at “ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities.”
Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.
The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF’s role in confronting Daesh had come to an end.
Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister’s office, told AFP on Saturday that “Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition,” which Washington has led since 2014 to fight Daesh.
He said they are being held in “strict, regular detention centers.”
A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the “continued transfer of Daesh detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition,” using another name for Daesh.
On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.
- Iraq calls for repatriation -
Daesh seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.
Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists.
In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offenses.
Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.
On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military’s operation.
In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said “the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist Daesh organization before the competent Iraqi courts.”
Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.
Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.
Maan noted that “the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed.”
