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Foreign ministers of UAE and Israel meet at the Holocaust memorial

In a historic gesture, the foreign ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin on Tuesday. The Israeli minister Gabi Ashkenazi and his Emirati colleague Abdullah bin Sajed met for the first time since the agreement on normalizing relations between their two countries was signed. They welcomed each other at the memorial in the presence of Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD).

Together, the chief diplomats walked through the gray field of stelae that commemorates the murder of six million Jews by the German Nazi regime. Both signed the information center of the memorial on adjacent pages in the guest book.

“Never again” wrote the Emirati Foreign Minister bin Sajed at the end of his entry. His visit to the Holocaust Memorial is of great symbolic importance and marks a change in the attitude of the Arab world towards Israel and the Jews.

Following the visit to the memorial and the associated information center, Aschkenasi and bin Sajed wanted to exchange ideas in the guest house of the German Foreign Minister. Finally, the three foreign ministers wanted to have a dinner to discuss developments in the Middle East peace process and in the region.

“We are doing everything we can to be good hosts for the dialogue between the two countries about the design of their future bilateral relations,” said Maas. The minister thanked Aschkenasi and bin Sajed for choosing Berlin as the location for their first meeting. “The most important currency in diplomacy is trust, and I am personally grateful to both of my colleagues for placing this trust in Germany.”

So far only two Arab countries have had relations

In mid-August, US President Donald Trump announced the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to normalize their relations. A corresponding agreement between Israel and Bahrain followed in September.

In mid-September, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed agreements in Washington to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Until then, only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, had diplomatic relations with Israel.

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