Israel Meets in Washington With UAE on Iran

Contacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in recent months included a trilateral meeting with American officials in Washington focused on the threat from Iran, Axios and Channel 13 reported on Tuesday.

At the December 17 meeting, held in the White House, on the agenda was also the possibility of a UAE-Israel nonaggression pact, an interim step toward diplomatic normalization. Jared Kushner has been advancing the idea.

Among those at the meeting in the White House were Kushner, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and his deputy Victoria Coates, Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and the

, and their aides.

Otaiba, along with officials from Qatar and Bahrain, attended last week’s historic press conference announcing President Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

When asked for comment, a senior White House official would only say: “While the United States would certainly welcome expanding relationships between our critical allies and partners in the Middle East, we’re not going to detail private diplomatic conversations, nor do we have anything to announce.”