Trump Urges Six Middle Eastern Countries to Recognize Israel to Advance US-Iran Negotiations

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement on social media on May 25, calling for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey to immediately join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel. This move is seen as a complementary term to the current U.S. negotiations with Iran for a medium-term peace agreement. Trump emphasized that the simultaneous recognition of Israel by several Middle Eastern countries is a necessary condition for promoting an overall regional agreement, and countries that fail to sign the agreement will be excluded from the final agreement.

Trump revealed that he had communicated with the leaders of the aforementioned six countries as well as the UAE and Bahrain last Saturday. Currently, the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are progressing smoothly, but there are no signs of an immediate agreement in the short term. Trump proposed that if Iran eventually signs an agreement with the U.S., it can also join the Abraham Accords in the future. Bloomberg analysis points out that this tough stance is aimed at appeasing the domestic U.S. hawkish forces on Iran, including Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who had previously warned Trump not to compromise with Iran.

At present, both the official representatives of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as the office of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, have not made a public response to this. The basic stance that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have insisted on previously is that they will only normalize relations on the condition that Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Although the UAE and Bahrain signed the agreement during Trump's first term in 2020, and Egypt and Jordan have already established diplomatic relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia, as a regional power, has not shown any willingness to advance the signing of the agreement after the cease-fire agreement in Gaza took effect last year.