Jerusalem, 7 November, 2025 (TPS-IL) — U.S. President Donald Trump announced Thursday night that Kazakhstan will normalize relations with Israel under the abraham accords, signaling a renewed push to expand the Middle East peace framework during his second term in office.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump wrote, “I just had a great conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Kazakhstan is the first country in my second term to join the Abraham Accords–the first of many.” He called the step “a significant move toward building bridges around the world,” adding that “more countries are lining up to embrace peace and prosperity through my Abraham Accords.”
The announcement came during Tokayev’s visit to Washington for the C5+1 summit — a gathering of leaders from the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, plus the United States.
At an official dinner, Trump told attendees that “some of the countries represented here will soon join the Abraham Accords, in addition to Kazakhstan, which announced this evening that it will officially join.” He later said a formal signing ceremony would be scheduled soon, promising “real progress, real results. Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Responding to questions about the significance of Kazakhstan’s move given its existing diplomatic ties with Israel, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said Kazakhstan’s participation “gives momentum to the Abraham Accords and creates a signal of friendship and legitimacy for the framework itself.”
Trump also linked the renewed wave of normalization efforts to changes in the regional security landscape. “We are in talks with many countries that wanted to join the Abraham Accords but couldn’t because of Iran being the bully of the Middle East,” he said. “Now that Iran’s nuclear capability has been eliminated, many want to join.”
Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates signed the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in April 2020, normalizing ties with the Jewish state. Morocco joined the accords in November of that year as part of an agreement in which the U.S. recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Sudan signed the Abraham Accords in January 2021 as part of an arrangement with the U.S. to be removed from the list of countries designated as state sponsors of terror. Unlike the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, however, Sudan has not taken steps to normalize ties, such as exchanging embassies. Relations are said to focus on quiet security and intelligence cooperation.
Israel and Kazakhstan established diplomatic relations in 1992, shortly after the Central Asian country gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan is a secular Muslim state that is tolerant of its religious and ethnic minorities, including Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Tatars, and a Jewish community estimated at between 3,000 and 10,000.
Israeli–Kazakh ties focus on education, medicine, agriculture, and technology, as well as defense and security collaboration. A number of Kazakh farmers and scientists have received training in Israel.
In recent years, reports have periodically speculated that countries such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Libya, Tunisia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia might join the accords.
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