Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stated that he sent an official invitation to his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita to visit Israel.
Lapid, in a written statement on his Twitter account, stated that the Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Ushpiz, who is currently visiting Morocco, conveyed, on his behalf, a letter inviting Moroccan Foreign Minister Bourita for an official visit to Tel Aviv.
Noting that the resumption of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco under the leadership of King Mohammed VI was a “historical turning point” in the relations between the two peoples, Lapid said that it would strengthen the political relations between Morocco and Israel and express his wish to cooperate in the fields of economy, technology, culture, and tourism.
The Israeli Minister stated that the direct flights between the two countries, which are expected to start in a few weeks, will also strengthen Moroccan-Israeli relations and revive the tourism sector.
There was no statement from the Moroccan authorities on the matter.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the previous day that Ushpiz went to Morocco to “develop and strengthen the relations between the two countries”.
Low-level relations between Rabat and Tel Aviv started after the Oslo Agreement was signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in 1993, but Morocco stopped these relations in 2002 after the outbreak of the 2nd Intifada.
Moroccan King Mohammed VI announced on December 11, 2020, that relations with Israel would be established “as soon as possible”. On the same day, US President Donald Trump announced that Morocco and Israel had reached an agreement to establish full diplomatic relations.
With this decision, Morocco became the fourth Arab country to reach a normalization agreement with Israel in 2020, after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan, and became the first in the Maghreb region.
Morocco and Israel signed 4 agreements on December 22, 2020, within the scope of the normalization of diplomatic relations.
Following the agreement to normalize relations between Tel Aviv and Rabat last year, Israel appointed former Cairo Ambassador David Govrin as interim head of the diplomatic mission to Morocco on January 11.
