By Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he has asked countries including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey to join the Abraham Accords en masse to normalize relations with Israel as he tries to negotiate an agreement to end the war with Iran.
Trump said he spoke on Saturday to leaders of those countries, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which have already signed the accords, a set of agreements to normalize relations with Israel.
“I am mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords, and that, if Iran signs its Agreement with me, as President of the United States of America, it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
He cited “all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together.”
Trump said those countries would be honored to have Iran as part of the accords once a deal to end the war is reached.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s post. The other countries cited by Trump did not immediately respond to the Abraham Accords post.
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Trump said one or two of the countries he spoke with may have a reason for not joining but most should be “ready, willing, and able to make this Settlement with Iran a far more Historic Event than it would, otherwise, be.”
Trump also said negotiations with Iran were “proceeding nicely” but gave no indication a deal was imminent.
Longtime Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham has embraced the idea of linking an Iran deal to expanding the Abraham Accords as “beyond transformative for the region and world.”
Others see the strategy as something to make an Iran deal more palatable to skeptics.
“Trump is trying to sell an Iran deal as an Abraham Accords sequel: good for Israel, good for the region, tough enough for Washington,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.
“But he is trading one fantasy for another — from forcing Iran to surrender to pretending a fragile deal can anchor a new Middle East order.”
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to expand the accords that he brokered during his first term in the White House.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed during Trump’s first term in 2020, breaking a longstanding taboo to become the first Arab states to recognise Israel in a quarter century. Morocco and Sudan followed suit.
Trump had been upbeat about prospects that regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia would finally join the accords after a ceasefire went into effect in Gaza last year, but Riyadh has shown no willingness to move ahead.
Egypt and Jordan have already established relations with Israel.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington, additional reporting by Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem; Editing by Alison Williams and Chizu Nomiyama)
