Director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Alon Ushpiz participated today in the steering committee's first meeting to plan the Negev Summit. The meeting took place in Bahrain, marking further progress in the rapprochement process initiated by Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid last March.

The March Negev Summit convened at the Sde Boker village, where Israel’s first premier, David Ben Gurion, lived and is buried. It was a first-of-its-kind meeting, bringing together foreign ministers from Israel, the United States, the Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt. There, the six founding countries vowed to take action to bring security, prosperity and stability to the Middle East and called on more countries in the region to join the effort.

They also set up six working groups, each to be chaired by one of the participants. Each of the six groups — regional security, food and water security, energy, health, education and tolerance and tourism — is expected to meet two or three times a year.

A statement issued by Israel’s Foreign Ministry read, “The member states discussed the operative ways in which to promote cooperation in a manner that will lead to tangible achievements for the region and its people, including, among other things, through the new forum created by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in March of this year.”