Morocco to Host ‘Negev Summit 2’ in Desert City of Dakhla, Sources Say i24NEWS In Monday.

The foreign ministers of the United States, Israel, Egypt, the Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain and Morocco are expected to attend the conference which will take place in January 2023.

Well-informed Moroccan sources said i24NEWS that “Morocco is preparing to receive working groups whose objective will be to advance projects in the areas of regional security, food and water security, energy, health, education and tourism, in preparation for the Negev 2 Summit”, noting that “Morocco is seeking to persuade the Palestinian Authority to participate in the summit.”

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita told participating foreign ministers during the inaugural summit of the Negev held last March in southern Israel: “We hope to meet in another desert, but in the same spirit”, evoking his desire to “embrace the meeting in the Moroccan Sahara”.

“We are here to create competitive value in order to achieve peace for all countries in the region, and this is a message to the whole world and to the peoples of the region. We are here to create and strengthen relations between peoples and between them, and we come here from our country to achieve these modes of coexistence and existence,” he added.

In this context, the Arab countries that participated in the “Negev summit” in southern Israel (UAE, Egypt, Bahrain and Morocco) called on the American administration to respect Washington’s commitment to open a consulate in Dakhla.

The city located on a narrow peninsula on the Atlantic coast is in the disputed region of Western Sahara which Morocco claims as its sovereign territory.

Click here for an Explainer on Western Sahara.

Morocco has normalized its relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords two years ago. The administration of former US President Donald Trump has recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of the deal.

The New York Times reported that the opening of an American consulate in Dakhla in the desert was on the agenda of the Negev summit in Israel, where the foreign ministers of Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt called on US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to uphold the Trump administration’s commitment to open the consulate, and also called on ministers to open a US consulate in East Jerusalem.