Pompeo arrives in UAE after stops in Israel, Sudan and Bahrain

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held closed-door meetings Wednesday with Bahrain’s royal family and planned others with top officials in the United Arab Emirates amid the Trump administration’s push for more Arab nations to recognise Israel.

Pompeo already travelled to Israel and Sudan as part of a five-day Middle East tour focused on securing formal Israeli ties with Arab nations, building on momentum from a landmark UAE-Israel normalisation deal brokered by the US earlier this month.

The US hopes the UAE-Israel accord, under which Israel agreed to temporarily suspend its annexation plans in areas of the West Bank, will trigger a domino effect in the region, pushing other Arab nations that maintain backdoor ties with Israel to formalise their relationships.

Middle East experts say more normalisation breakthroughs could help US President Donald Trump showcase diplomatic achievements ahead of a tough re-election campaign in November.

Pompeo met with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in Manama on Wednesday morning.

“We discussed the importance of building regional peace and stability, including the importance of Gulf unity and countering Iran’s malign influence in the region,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

Pompeo also said he discussed efforts to “advance greater unity among Gulf countries.” That’s as his plane flew over Qatar on its way to the United Arab Emirates, one of four Arab nations along with Bahrain now boycotting Doha over a yearslong political dispute. Typically, Bahraini and Emirati aircraft avoid Qatari airspace as they’ve closed their own airspace to Qatar Airways.

His meetings in Bahrain come after a US-brokered deal announced August 13 that saw the United Arab Emirates and Israel open diplomatic relations.

Bahrain is also home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet and remains a close security partner of the US. Pompeo arrived there Tuesday night and met Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, wearing an American-flag-coloured face mask amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Pompeo landed later Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the seven-sheikhdom federation of the UAE. There, he will speak with his Emirati counterpart and others.

Pompeo visited Sudan on Tuesday on what he said was the first official non-stop flight from Israel to Sudan.

There he met with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who made it clear that the transitional government he represents “does not have a mandate … to decide on normalisation with Israel.”

Hamdok also urged Washington not to link the issue of normalisation with Sudan’s listing as a state sponsor of terror, an economically crippling designation they have lobbied to have removed.

The US sanctioned Sudan over its alleged support for extremist groups and the civil war in Darfur, but Pompeo has said the State Department hopes to remove the listing if a compensation package is reached for victims of 1998 US embassy bombings whose operatives were allegedly aided by Sudan.

“I think lifting the state sponsor of terrorism designation there if we can… take care of the victims of those tragedies would be a good thing for American foreign policy,” Pompeo told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July.

The US has improved relations with Khartoum since the 2019 ouster of autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, who was replaced with a military-civilian transitional government preceding elections in 2022.

Sudan has also considerably warmed up to Israel after Bashir’s ouster, but it is unclear if the country’s leaders are ready to tackle the politically sensitive issue of normalisation.

In February, Sudan’s ruling council head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan made waves by meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Uganda and reportedly agreeing to gradually normalise ties. Speculation about Sudan-Israel normalisation grew after former Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Haidar Badawi announced earlier this month that Khartoum is “looking forward to concluding a peace agreement with Israel.”

“There is no reason to continue hostility between Sudan and Israel,” Badawi told Sky News Arabia, adding that the country was in contact with Israel about improving ties.

Badawi’s comments were apparently not cleared with the government, however, as he was quickly dismissed from his post for making “unauthorised comments” and Sudanese officials have since been more cautious.

The mixed signals from Sudan underscore the sensitive nature of Israeli normalisation in the region, where public support for the Palestinian cause runs high. Egypt, Jordan and the UAE are so far the only Arab nations to have formalised ties with Tel Aviv.

Saudi Arabia, which has drawn closer to Israel over their shared antipathy to Iran, announced it would not normalise ties with Tel Aviv until Israelis and Palestinians reach a peace accord leading to a two-state solution.

Morocco also ruled out any normalisation deal with the Jewish State, with Prime Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani warning that such an accord would “embolden” Israel to “go further in breaching the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Oman and Bahrain appear to be more likely candidates for normalisation. Each country congratulated the UAE following its peace deal with Israel and are reported to be engaged in US-brokered talks to secure their own accords.

US President Donald Trump has hailed the UAE-Israel deal as a major foreign policy victory that he hopes to build on as he braces for a tough reelection battle in November.