Blinken, Indonesian Officials Discuss Forging Ties With Israel: Report

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a trip to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, last week spoke with senior Indonesian officials about joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel, according to a report Thursday morning by the Walla and Axios news websites. The report said that Israeli officials aware of the discussions were not expecting a breakthrough in the near future. State Department spokesperson Ned Price is quoted in the report as saying, “We are always exploring additional opportunities for normalization, but we’ll leave those discussions behind closed doors until the right moment.” The Jewish state and Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, have never had formal diplomatic relations. But meetings last month on the sidelines of Bahrain’s annual Manama Dialogue conference between Indonesia’s Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and two Israeli officials – National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata and Itay Tagner, the chargé d’affaires at the Israeli Embassy in Manama  – may signal of warming of informal relations.