Will Saudi Arabia join Abraham Accords? Trump says more countries will sign the agreement after Gaza ceasefire

Following a successful Gaza ceasefire, US President Donald Trump is now pushing for more countries to join the Abraham Accords, which was in a limbo due the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Trump said Saudi officials expressed willingness to join the agreement "as recently as like yesterday", claiming he has had ‘very good conversations’ with them.

"I had some very good conversations," Trump said told Fox Business Network during an interview. "They couldn’t have done it during the war."

He also pointed out that the Saudis could not have normalised relations with Israel "with Iran as a power." He was referring to Israeli-US bombing in Iran in June.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords on September 15, 2020, during Trump's first term as president. The two countries became the first Arab nations to recognise Israel ever since Jordan did it in 1994.

Besides Saudi Arabia, Trump is hoping to get Syria and Lebanon to join the Accords.

This comes in the backdrop of Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty saying that resolution in the Palesitinian issue is key to reviving the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor through sea and rail. "We have to bear in mind that connectivity is very important as part of a final settlement of the Palestinian cause," Abdelatty told reporters during a visit to New Delhi.

"The IMEC is an important project, but we have to understand that what happened over the last two years is that if you have escalation, that could hinder the cooperation, the connectivity," Abdelatty tells reporters.

IMEC aims to connect India to the UAE via Arabian Sea and then via Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel to Europe. India and the UAE have already signed a deal regarding this.