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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting Chadian president Sunday that he planned to make more trips to Arab countries after going to Oman last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) prepares to shake hands with Chadian President Idriss Deby during their joint statements in Jerusalem on November 25, 2018. REUTERS / Ronen Zvulun
Israel has diplomatic relations only with two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, although Netanyahu has hinted that its relations with the Arab Gulf states would tighten, which Israel considers a natural ally against Iran, regional power.
Netanyahu and his ministers have visited several Gulf states in recent weeks. Although he did not specify his next planned Arab destination, local media said that Israel was already talking in Bahrain about establishing official relations, which would make it a port of choice. 39, probable stopover.
Chadian President Idriss Deby arrived in Israel Sunday for the first official visit of an officer from a Central African country who broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1972.
"We have been discussing … the great changes that are happening in the Arab world in its relations with Israel," Netanyahu said, adding that there would soon be other visits to the Arab countries.
The Netanyahu government has invested in outreach activities in Africa, where some previously warm-hearted countries in Israel have kept their distance since the occupation of the Palestinian territories during the 1967 Middle East War. Israel has diplomatic relations with 32 of the continent's 54 countries.
Deby said that her visit was "historic" for both countries and that she "could facilitate the filming of a new page in the relations between us", but added that even with renewed links, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be ignored.
"Of course, the renewal of diplomatic relations between us, which I strongly hope, is not likely to remove the Palestinian problem," said Deby in French through a translator.
Informal contacts between Israel and Chad have been going on for a long time, said Deby. A source told Reuters the visit was security-focused, adding that Israel had provided the Chadian army with weapons and equipment this year to help fight the rebels.
Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior Palestinian official, said he was unhappy with Deby's visit.
"All countries and institutions must boycott the extremist government of Israel and impose a siege on it because of its settlement activities, its occupation of Palestinian land," Youssef said.
Deby, 66, has been in power since 1990 and is an ally of the West in the fight against Islamist militants in West Africa. However, impoverished Chad is facing destabilizing forces on several fronts, including jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
It is also trying to prevent an influx of militants fleeing the Libyan conflict and closed in January the border between Chad and its northern neighbor.
In July 2016, Deby hosted Dore Gold, then director of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for exploratory talks on improving bilateral relations. Gold said Sunday on Israeli radio that his Chadian hosts had told him that they had broken their ties in 1972 under Libyan pressure, a factor eliminated with the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Other reports by Dan Williams and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Madjiasra Nako in N Djamena; Written by Jeffrey Heller and Ori Lewis; Edited by Raissa Kasolowsky, David Goodman and David Gregorio
