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Israel opens Bahrain embassy, three years after normalising ties
- Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen attended an official ceremony for the opening of the diplomatic mission during a visit to Bahrain
- The normalisation deal between Bahrain and Israel was part of a series of agreements known as the Abraham Accords
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Israel officially opened its embassy in Bahrain on Monday, three years after both sides normalised ties and as Washington presses Riyadh for a similar deal that would be Israel’s biggest diplomatic win in the region.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen attended an official ceremony for the opening of the diplomatic mission during a visit to Bahrain which included a delegation of businessmen and government officials.
“The [Bahrain] foreign minister and I agreed that we should work together to increase the number of direct flights, the tourism, the trade volume, the investments,” Cohen said during the ceremony.
Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani said the inauguration of the embassy “signifies our shared commitment to security and prosperity for all the peoples of our region”.
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The normalisation deal between Bahrain and Israel was part of a series of agreements, known as the Abraham Accords, which were also signed with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.
Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is a small island on the Gulf where Saudi Sunni allies, the al-Khalifa royal family, rule over a Shiite majority.
Analysts said the rapprochement with Israel was forged partly through shared fears of Iran.
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