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Iran Press TV

Israel establishes 'formal diplomatic ties' with Bhutan

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 12 December 2020 11:41 PM

The Israeli regime says it has signed a deal with Bhutan to establish diplomatic relations with the relatively-isolated Himalayan nation.

Israel's foreign ministry says the deal follows several years of "secret contacts" between Tel Aviv and Thimphu with the aim of establishing relations.

The agreement signed on Saturday does not appear to be related to the US-sponsored normalization deals with Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa.

The deal with Bhutan came two days after Donald Trump, the outgoing president of the United States, announced that Morocco had reached an agreement with Israel on the normalization of relations, becoming the fourth Arab country – after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Sudan – to reach such a deal with the Tel Aviv regime since August.

Morocco's royal court confirmed the news and said that the US will open a consulate in the Western Sahara territory in line with the agreement.

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has strongly condemned the Tel Aviv-Rabat agreement as a "political sin". Also the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement condemned the normalization deal, describing it as a betrayal of Jerusalem al-Quds.

Earlier normalization deals between Arab states and the Tel Aviv regime had also been condemned by all Palestinian factions as a betrayal of their cause and a stab on their back.

In mid-September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed normalization pacts with Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani during an official ceremony hosted by Trump at the White House.

The following month, Trump said Israel and Sudan had also established economic ties as a pathway toward normalized ties.

After Trump's announcement on Morocco's normalization with Israel, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, said that an Israel-Saudi agreement was inevitable and that the only issue that had to be worked out was the timeframe.

"Israel and Saudi Arabia coming together and having full normalization at this point is an inevitability, but the timeframe… is something that has to be worked out," he told reporters, noting that such a deal would require "strong US leadership in the region."



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