Bahrain and Israel have signed a communique formally establishing diplomatic ties in Manama, a month after first agreeing to normalise their relationship.
The signing ceremony took place during a high-level visit by Israeli and US officials, who arrived on the first-ever commercial flight between Tel Aviv and Manama earlier on Sunday.
Bahrain, along with the United Arab Emirates, agreed to normalise ties following mediation by the United States.
The move infuriated Palestinians, who saw it as a betrayal of a 2002 Arab League precondition for normalisation Israel must first recognise an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani al-Zayani described the visit by the US-Israeli delegation to Bahrain as “historic”.
“Today, we build on that historic occasion at the White House last month, taking the next steps to implement the declaration in support of peace and the Abraham Accords,” he said after greeting US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabat at Bahrain International Airport.
He said that engagement and co-operation were “the most effective, the most sustainable means to bring about a genuine and lasting peace, one which safeguards the rights of all the Middle East’s peoples”.
Read the article by in The West Australian.