Pakistan rejects Trump’s Abraham Accords call, says Khawaja Asif
Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has rejected US President Donald Trump’s call for Muslim-majority countries, including Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords, calling the proposal “not acceptable” and inconsistent with Pakistan’s ideological position.
Asif said Pakistan should not agree to any arrangement that conflicts with its long-standing foreign policy stance regarding Israel.
“Personally, I don’t think we should join any such accord that clashes with our fundamental ideologies,” Asif said, adding that Pakistan’s position on Israel remains unchanged.
He also questioned the reliability of engaging with parties whose commitments, he claimed, could not be trusted. “How will you sit with those people whose word cannot be trusted for even a single day?” he said.
The remarks came after reports that Trump has urged countries involved in ongoing West Asia peace efforts to consider joining the Abraham Accords, which establish diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. Several Arab nations, including the UAE and Bahrain, are already part of the agreement.
Pakistan has never recognised Israel since its independence and continues to link any potential normalisation of ties to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Asif, who has repeatedly criticised Israel, has in the past described it as a “curse for humanity” while accusing it of committing atrocities in the region.
The debate comes amid broader diplomatic discussions in West Asia, where several countries are reassessing alignments as conflict dynamics and US-led negotiations evolve.
