FILE – Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attends a gathering with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit of the Commonwealth of Impartial States on the Palace of the Nation in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Oct. 10, 2025.
Vladimir Smirnov/AP by way of Pool Sputnik Kremlin
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Vladimir Smirnov/AP by way of Pool Sputnik Kremlin
WASHINGTON — Kazakhstan is about to affix the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab and Muslim majority international locations in a symbolic transfer geared toward boosting the initiative that was a trademark of President Donald Trump’s first administration.
The motion, introduced Thursday, is essentially symbolic as Kazakhstan has had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992 and is far farther geographically from Israel than the opposite Abraham Accord nations — Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.
These international locations agreed to normalize relations with Israel because of becoming a member of the accords, one thing Kazakhstan did shortly after gaining independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The transfer was first confirmed to The Related Press by three U.S. officers who insisted on anonymity to element plans that hadn’t but been made public. Hours later, Trump posted on his social media website that he’d had “an excellent name between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel, and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, of Kazakhstan” and that Kazakhstan is the “first Nation of my Second Time period to affix the Abraham Accords, the primary of many.”
Trump referred to as Kazakhstan becoming a member of “a serious step ahead in constructing bridges throughout the World” and stated “extra Nations are lining as much as embrace Peace and Prosperity by my Abraham Accords.”
A signing ceremony would quickly make it official, Trump, and “there are various extra Nations making an attempt to affix this membership of STRENGTH.”
“A lot extra to return in uniting Nations for Stability and Progress — Actual progress, actual outcomes,” Trump wrote. “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”
Trump, a Republican, made the announcement shortly earlier than the beginning of a summit he hosted Thursday night with the leaders of the 5 Central Asian nations, together with Kazakhstan.
Regardless of their earlier long-standing ties, the U.S. officers stated Kazakhstan’s participation within the Abraham Accords with Israel was vital as it could improve their bilateral commerce and cooperation and signaled that Israel is changing into much less remoted internationally, notably after huge criticism and protests over its conduct within the conflict towards Hamas in Gaza.
One official maintained that Trump’s nascent peace plan for Gaza had “utterly modified the paradigm” and that many international locations have been now keen to “transfer towards the circle of peace” that it had created.
That official stated particular areas of enhanced Israeli-Kazakh cooperation would come with protection, cybersecurity, vitality and meals expertise, though all of these have been topics of earlier bilateral agreements relationship again to the mid-Nineteen Nineties.
Forward of Thursday night time’s summit between Trump and the Central Asian leaders, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a working breakfast with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, though the State Division made no point out of something associated to Israel.
Rubio and Tokayev “mentioned increasing alternatives for industrial commerce and funding in addition to elevated cooperation with Kazakhstan in vitality, expertise, and infrastructure,” the division stated in a press release.
