Kushner on Abraham Accords: ‘We Are Watching the Middle East Transform Before Our Eyes’
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner speaks upon arriving at Abu Dhabi International Airport, in the United Arab Emirates, Aug. 31, 2020. Photo: Ministry of Presidential Affairs / WAM / Handout via Reuters.
i24 News – Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner called the Abraham Accords a “rare foreign policy effort that has achieved a bipartisan consensus” at an event in Washington on Tuesday celebrating the agreement’s one-year anniversary.
The White House signing ceremony normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain took place on September 15, 2020.
The US-brokered pact later added Morocco and Sudan.
“Thanks to the agreements, we are watching the Middle East transform before our eyes,” Kushner said in his opening remarks, while cautioning that if the Abraham Accords “are not nurtured, we run the risk that they could go backward.”
The event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown was hosted by the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace, a center established by Kushner to further advance the diplomatic relationships established last year.
Delighted to join in a 1 year celebration of the Abraham Accords hosted by Jared Kushner & the Abraham Accords Peace Institute w/ my Arab colleagues. I emphasized the importance of moderate M.E. states addressing regional challenges together. Soon more Muslim states will join us! pic.twitter.com/24LA9kTXrG
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) September 14, 2021
Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden were expected to attend, with i24 News senior US correspondent Mike Wagenheim reporting that Acting Assistant Secretary at the State Department Yael Lempert was in attendance.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday will hold a virtual meeting to mark the Abraham Accords anniversary with his counterparts from Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.