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Ten blocks away from the United Nations General Assembly, U.S. diplomats quietly kickstarted the expansion of the Abraham Accords from the 43rd floor of a midtown Manhattan office tower.
On Thursday morning, State Department officials participated in the first official meeting of the Abraham Accords countries — the United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco — since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Hamas attacks on Israel derailed the expansion of the Accords to more countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The Abraham Accords countries were joined Thursday for the first time by officials from Kazakhstan, which expressed an interest in joining the Accords last year.
The U.S. delegation was led by a senior State Department official, Under Secretary of Political Affairs Allison Hooker.
“Nearly three years after October 7, the Abraham Accords countries are back together,” Hooker said, adding that President Trump brokered the historic agreements during his first term, and Thursday was an important signifier that the accords are “moving forward again.”
The meeting was hosted by the N7 Foundation, a U.S.-based organization that has convened multilateral meetings of the Abraham Accords countries since 2021.
“The next phase is about deepening the relationships that already exist and identifying practical opportunities for countries to work together,” said Jeffrey Talpins, founder of the N7 Foundation, who chaired the meeting.
Another senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly told CBS News that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team and Steve Witkoff, the White House Special Envoy for Peace Missions, “are clearly prioritizing this effort.”
Also present at the meeting were Aryeh Lightstone, special adviser to the Board of Peace, an international coalition dedicated to peace and reconstruction in Gaza, Ryan Arant, chief of staff to Under Secretary Hooker at the State Department, and Oren Eisner, president of the N7 Foundation.
The Abraham Accords are a set of agreements that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and several Muslim countries. The first of a series of agreements was signed in 2020, toward the end of Mr. Trump’s first term.
The UAE and Bahrain became the first two Gulf Arab countries to formally recognize Israel. Morocco soon followed.
Before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, momentum was building for Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries to join the accords, but the attack and the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran that ensued stalled further expansion.
President Trump announced Kazakhstan’s intention to join the Abraham Accords during an Oval Office meeting with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in November 2025.
“We will soon announce a Signing Ceremony to make it official, and there are many more Countries trying to join this club of STRENGTH,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
An official with the Kazakhstan embassy told CBS News that Thursday’s gathering was a tangible step in the direction of expanding the accords.
“We are very excited about joining the Abraham Accords and all the partnership can do,” he said. “We are interested in collaborations in technology and transport. Together we can do more than each individual country could do alone.”
Participants discussed next steps to formalize cooperation among Abraham Accords countries, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
“The Abraham Accords have demonstrated what is possible when countries come together around shared interests with a common vision for a more integrated and prosperous region,” Talpins said.
