Flying into Bahrain on an El Al jet, an Israeli diplomatic team signed several historic agreements with Bahraini officials. But for domestic political reasons, the Bahrainis stopped short of a full peace treaty, unlike the UAE.
The
Israeli delegation was led by National Security Adviser Meir
Ben-Shabbat and Foreign Ministry director general Alon Ushpiz. They were
joined by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the White House
envoy to the peace process, Avi Berkowitz.
Ben-Shabbat
and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani signed a
“Joint Communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic, peaceful, and
friendly relations.” The two countries promised not to take hostile
actions against one another and to act against hostile actions by third
countries.
The
two countries also signed eight separate Memorandum of Understandings
in economic cooperation, civil aviation, cooperation between the
ministries of finance, communications and post, agriculture, cooperation
between the ministries of foreign affairs, exemption of visa
requirements for diplomats and cooperation between their respective
Chambers of Commerce.
At
the welcoming ceremony at the airport, Bahraini Foreign Minister Al
Zayani said: “Today we start implementing the peace declaration which we
signed in Washington. This approach is the most efficient one to
achieve peace in the Middle East.
This morning, the first commercial flight from the UAE, a Boeing 787 from Etihad Airlines landed in Israel.Bahrain
requested that it only sign an interim agreement and not a
fully-fledged peace treaty with Israel, like the UAE did earlier this
month.
Bahraini foreign ministry official said: “In contrast to the UAE we
prefer to take more measured steps and to sign a framework agreement at
this stage, rather than a full peace treaty. We have seen the criticism
that has emerged in Bahrain and other Arab countries as a result of the
normalisation agreements with Israel and we are taking them into
account.
But we will not derail the process of establishing relations
between the countries ahead of a full peace treaty that will include
full diplomatic relations, exchange of ambassadors, opening embassies
and a range of diplomatic, economic, business and tourism agreements
with Israel.”
Israeli
officials have also noted the opposition to normalisation within
Bahrain, which has a Shi’ite Muslim majority but ruled by a Sunni
monarchy.
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