Mike Pompeo starts his Middle East tour on Monday
In the heat of the winds of change blowing across the Middle East, the American Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, begins a tour this Monday that begins in Israel, continues in Sudan and ends in the Emirates. Pompeo will meet on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition partner, the Minister of Defence and current Prime Minister Benny Gantz. There are three main issues on the table, as confirmed by the United States Embassy in Israel: the progress of negotiations to establish diplomatic ties with the Emirates, following the agreement announced and mediated by the Trump Administration, the efforts by Washington to reimpose sanctions on Iran and the Chinese presence in Israel.
The Chinese issue could be the thorniest, as the White House is concerned about the growth of Chinese interests in its main ally, Israel. In recent years, the presence of Chinese companies working on infrastructure management and construction projects has increased, and last year Washington expressed its disagreement with the resumption of management of the Israeli port of Haifa by a company of its main trading rival.
After Israel, the head of US diplomacy will travel to Khartoum to discuss the "transition" in Sudan, which last year ended three decades of Omar el Bechir's reign. He will also discuss a possible strengthening of ties between the Sudanese and Israeli authorities, according to Infobae. The passage from Pompeo will be short and he will continue to the Arab Emirates to meet their authorities on the progress of negotiations with Israel. Since the United States announced the official rapprochement of the two countries on 13 August, accelerated steps have been taken in this direction.
After that, Pompeo will continue to travel to the Emirates to discuss with his authorities the progress of the negotiations for the normalisation of relations, announced last August. The agreement was experienced in Israel as a diplomatic triumph by Netanyahu, later tarnished by reports that, in order to obtain it, the Prime Minister secretly gave the green light to the sale by the United States of F-35 aircraft and other advanced weapons to Abu Dhabi, thus lifting the veto and breaking the rule that obliges Washington to guarantee that Israel will have an advantage in military technology in the region.
The White House and Israel are now seeking to convince other Gulf countries, such as Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia, to follow in the UAE's footsteps. The Emirates' move marks a change in the historic consensus within the Arab League, which refuses to establish relations with Israel until there is a peace agreement with the Palestinians.