FILE - Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz speaks portion gathering with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, connected June 3, 2021, astatine the State Department successful Washington. Israels defence curate headed to Morocco connected Tuesday, Nov. 23, for an authoritative sojourn to cement information ties conscionable up of the archetypal day of their statement to found afloat diplomatic relations. Gantz volition beryllium making the archetypal authoritative sojourn by an Israeli defence curate to 1 of the 4 Arab states that agreed to normalize ties with Israel past year. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) (Jacquelyn Martin, Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

RABAT – Israel’s defence curate met with his Moroccan counterpart connected Wednesday successful Rabat arsenic portion of a landmark sojourn to formalize information practice betwixt the 2 countries.

Israel and Morocco established ceremonial relations past twelvemonth arsenic portion of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords.

Benny Gantz’s travel is the archetypal authoritative sojourn by an Israeli defence curate to 1 of the Arab states that established unfastened relations, a travel that aims to further fortify defence ties betwixt the countries.

Gantz met with Abdellatif Loudiyi, the Moroccan defence minister, and the 2 are expected to motion a memorandum of knowing that lays the instauration for information practice and aboriginal arms sales.

Ahead of his gathering with Loudiyi, Gantz paid his respects astatine the tomb of Mohamed V, the gramps of the reigning monarch.

Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel successful 2020 arsenic portion of the diplomatic pacts brokered by the Trump medication known arsenic the Abraham Accords.

Ad

Israel and Morocco enjoyed low-level diplomatic relations successful the 1990s, but Morocco severed them aft a Palestinian uprising erupted successful 2000. Despite that, the 2 states person maintained informal relations. Nearly fractional a cardinal Israelis assertion Moroccan practice — much than 200,000 immigrated to Israel aft the founding of the authorities successful 1948 — and thousands sojourn the state each year.

Morocco is inactive location to a tiny Jewish community, and Rabat has 1 remaining synagogue.

In speech for Morocco normalizing relations with Israel, the Trump medication promised successful December 2020 to admit Moroccan sovereignty implicit Western Sahara, a disputed northbound African territory. The announcement upset decades of U.S. argumentation and planetary statement that Western Sahara’s presumption should beryllium settled by a U.N. referendum.

Since then, the Biden medication has cautiously walked backmost that recognition.

Ad

The Abraham Accords broke a longstanding statement among Arab states that normalization with Israel lone instrumentality spot arsenic portion of a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Because of that, the Palestinians presumption the agreements arsenic a betrayal that eroded their leverage with Israel.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.