During his first official visit to Bahrain, which normalized relations with Jerusalem in 2020 under the auspices of the Abraham Accords, which were mediated by the Trump administration, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen is attempting to finalize a free trade agreement.
According to Cohen in an interview with the nearby Al-Ayyam newspaper that was published on Monday, the visit was planned “in order to continue building, expanding, and deepening the bilateral friendship… while strengthening agreements in the economic and trade fields.”
In our vision of the Middle East, people live in safety and peace. Creating a new reality and ensuring economic prosperity are the objectives, he continued.
Bahrain can act as a bridge to relations with other nearby Arab nations, Israeli Ambassador to Bahrain Eitan Na’eh told JNS in June.
There is a chance to strengthen our ties with Bahrain and [other] Arab Gulf states, according to Na’eh. “Bahrain could be the link between the East and the West.” The U.S. and Cohen met on Monday.
Steven Bondy, the United States’ ambassador to Bahrain, and U.S. Vice Adm. Brad Cooper of Naval Forces Central Command is pictured at Bahrain’s Fifth Fleet base.
The top Israeli diplomat will inaugurate the Israeli embassy’s new permanent location in the Gulf state and witness the signing of a number of MOUs. King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain is another person he is anticipating meeting.
On Sunday night, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Cohen’s Bahraini counterpart, welcomed him to Manama.
The first state visits to Bahrain by an Israeli head of government and head of state occurred last year when then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog made separate trips.
An Israeli parliamentary delegation visited Bahrain in March to take part in a conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which has 179 national parliaments, including the Knesset, as well as 13 regional parliaments as associate members.
The IPU is based in Geneva. Israel also established ties with Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates as a result of the Abraham Accords. A normalization agreement between Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia is being negotiated under American mediation, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described as a “quantum leap” toward regional stability.
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