Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain will host on Monday a meeting for delegations of the group of states, whose foreign ministers participated in the Negev summit three months ago, and which resulted in the establishment of the so-called Negev Forum, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation reported on Sunday. 

Representatives from Bahrain, the UAE, Egypt, Morocco, Israel and the United States will participate in the working meeting in Bahrain on Monday, the corporation said.

According to the corporation, the meeting aims to develop the rules of work and systems of meetings of the various working groups of the countries mentioned, on strengthening cooperation in the fields of water, energy, education, economy and regional security cooperation.

The Israeli occupation entity is to be represented at the meeting by Israel's Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz. Meanwhile, the United States of America will be represented by State Department official Yael Lempert.

Oded Joseph, head of the Foreign Ministry's Middle East desk, said that Saudi Arabia may participate in such meetings in the future.

Earlier yesterday, the Israel Hume newspaper reported that Israel is racing against time to complete additional normalization steps with Saudi Arabia, even before U.S. President Joe Biden's visit to the region in July. 

In this context, the newspaper noted Tel Aviv's efforts to reach understandings and agreement with Riyadh on allowing Israeli flights to pass through Saudi airspace, and allowing Arab-Israeli pilgrims to travel to the kingdom by air.

According to the understandings, reported by the Hebrew newspaper, flights should be direct from Ben Gurion Airport to Riyadh airport without having to land at Amman airport, and then set off again for Saudi Arabia.

Arabic Version