Herzog secretly visited Jordan for meeting with king

Today, 8:30 pm

 

President Isaac Herzog (right) speaks during a conference in Jerusalem, on August 1, 2021, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II (left) listens during a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Amman, Jordan, May 26, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90, AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool, File)

President Isaac Herzog traveled last week to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II, Herzog reveals, in the latest sign of warming ties between the countries.

He spent a very positive and important evening with the king at his palace, Herzog tells Channel 12 and 13 primetime news.

“Jordan is a very important country. I have immense respect for King Abdullah, a great leader and a highly significant regional actor,” Herzog is also quoted saying in a statement from his office. “In our meeting, among the things we discussed were the core issues in the dialogue between our states.”

He adds: “There is a sense in the region of a desire to make progress, a desire to speak.”

Herzog notes that it’s been a year since the first Abraham Accords — the normalization agreements between Israel and four of its regional neighbors, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — were signed.

 

“These accords created an important regional infrastructure. They are highly important agreements, which are transforming our region and the dialogue within it,” he says.

Herzog says that he plans “to speak with and meet other heads of state in the region.”

“I speak with many leaders from all around the world, almost every day, in full coordination with the Government of Israel. I think that it is very important for the State of Israel’s strategic and diplomatic interests to engage everyone in dialogue,” he says.

Herzog’s trip was the latest in a series of high-level contacts between the countries after the swearing-in of Israel’s new government last month, following strained bilateral ties in recent years during the premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/herzog-secretly-visited-jordan-for-meeting-with-king/.