– Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) 26 August 2020
Bahrain, a small island country off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf, has a historic Jewish community. The kingdom slowly encouraged ties with Israel, and two US-based rabbis in 2017 claimed that King Hamad himself had promoted the concept of ending the Arab countries’ boycott of Israel. The boycott was established to provide the Palestinians with their efforts to form an independent state.
Like the Gulf countries, Bahrain has Israel as a common enemy in Iran, which Manama accuses of triggering protests through the country’s Shia Muslim network that opposes the ruling Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty.
Bahrain is also home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. And it’s still a close U.S. security partner. Pompeo arrived there Tuesday night and met with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, dressed in a mask colored with the American flag amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
After his stopover in Bahrain, Pompeo flew to the United Arab Emirates, where he planned to meet with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Federation of the Seven Sheikhs.
During his middle east, Pompeo also stopped in Israel and Sudan.
Pompeo’s meetings come after the agreement negotiated across the United States, announced on 13 August, at which the United Arab Emirates and Israel opened diplomatic relations. He hoped that other countries would join the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations with Israel, despite complaints from the agreement from parts of the Arab world.
But Sudan on Tuesday thwarted America’s hopes of rapid progress in the country, saying that its transitional government, which last year replaced the overthrown strongman Omar al-Bashir and is expected to rule until the 2022 election, has no “mandate” to take that step. .
On Tuesday, Pompeo spoke by phone with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who is considered the driving force of the agreement between Israel and the emirate.
The two discussed the historic agreement “and clients to strengthen it into one that serves the foundations of peace and stability in the region,” said the official Emirati news firm WAM.
Pompeo included him delivering a message recorded in Jerusalem supporting US President Donald Trump’s re-election crusade for the Republican National Convention, a speech that highlighted his own recommendation to American diplomats to be apolitical and derail a long culture of impartiality by former secretaries. State.