U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host a virtual meeting with his counterparts from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco to mark the first anniversary of normalization agreements between the Arab countries and Israel, said a U.S. official.
The event will be the United States'highest-profile display of support for the so-called Abraham Accords, widely seen as a diplomatic success for former President Donald Trump.
President Joe Biden has signed up to the deals since January, and senior aides have said they were working to get extra Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel after decades of enmity. The administration had until now ignored the idea of commemorating the anniversary of the accords.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed plans for the meeting that was first reported on the Axios News website.
The leaders of Israel, Bahrain and the UAE signed the Abraham Accords in September of last year at the White House. Israel and Sudan announced in the following month that they would normalize relations and Morocco established diplomatic ties with Israel in December, after Biden defeated Trump in the U.S. election.
Palestinian officials said they felt betrayed by their Arab friends for reaching such deals with Israel without first demanding progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state.