Israel: Yair Lapid announces unprecedented official visit to United Arab Emirates

Published on : 06/21/2021 – 03:39 PM

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will travel to the United Arab Emirates on June 29 and 30 for the very first official visit of a minister of the Hebrew state to the Gulf monarchy.

Yair Lapid “will pay a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates next week as a guest of the UAE Foreign Minister,” Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyane, the Israeli ministry said on Monday (June 21st). It will be the first trip of its kind, described as “historic” for these two countries having normalized their relations in September.

“Relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates are important, their fruits will be appreciated not only by the citizens of the two countries, but by the entire Middle East,” the Israeli ministry said in a statement.

In October 2018, Miri Regev, then Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports, traveled to the Emirates to accompany the national judo team to the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, but it was not a visit. official.

Another Israeli minister, Druze Ayoub Kara, then in charge of Communications, also spoke in October 2018 at an international conference on telecommunications in Dubai.

In March, the first official visit to the Emirates by an Israeli prime minister, then Benjamin Netanyahu, was canceled due to a “dispute” with Jordan over the overflight of its airspace, the Israeli side said.

Benjamin Netanyahu, since replaced as head of government by Naftali Bennett, had already postponed in February a visit to the Emirates and Bahrain, another Gulf emirate that has normalized relations with the Hebrew state, due to travel restrictions imposed to fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the normalization in September 2020 of relations between the Emirates and Israel, under the leadership of the administration of former US President Donald Trump, the two countries have set up direct airlines, appointed ambassadors and increased visits of commercial delegations.

The Palestinians denounced the normalization agreements, described as “betrayal”, the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict having been until then regarded as a sine qua non to any normalization.

With AFP