Jerusalem: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and four top Arab diplomats from Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, and Egypt arrived on Sunday in Israel for a landmark regional summit in the southern Negev Desert, where they were joined by their Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid.
The two-day conference began on Sunday evening, Xinhua news agency reported.
It marks the first time that Israel hosts a meeting with Arab Foreign Ministers.
An emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is expected to be on top of the agenda for the conference, according to Israeli state-owned Kan TV.
Seeing Iran as its arch-enemy, Israel has been a vocal opponent of a nuclear deal with Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday that “Israel’s foreign relations are experiencing a good period.”
Last week, Bennett attended his first-ever trilateral summit with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi in the UAE, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.