Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who is visiting Morocco to cement security ties, inked a landmark deal paving the way for weapon sales to the North African kingdom, his office said on Wednesday.
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In a meeting with his Moroccan counterpart Abdellatif Loudiyi, the Israeli defense minister signed a defense memorandum of understanding as part of Jerusalem and Rabat's desire to cement their security ties.
Gantz and Loudiyi agreed to formalize security collaboration with an MOU outlining plans to establish a joint committee that will explore ways to expand cooperation across various areas, such as intelligence sharing, research, and joint military training.
The memo further allows Israeli defense firms to do business with Morocco, Israel Hayom has learned.
Gantz's two-day tour – the first official visit by an Israeli defense minister to an Abraham Accords partner – comes just ahead of the first anniversary of their agreement to establish full diplomatic relations.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the flight, Gantz said he was departing for a "historic meeting."
"We will sign cooperation agreements. We will continue to strengthen the connections. It is very important that this be a successful trip," he said.
During the visit, Gantz is slated to meet his Moroccan counterpart and sign an agreement that would lay the foundations for "formalizing defense relations between the countries," an Israeli official said. The official was not authorized to talk to the press ahead of the trip and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the diplomatic pacts brokered by the Trump administration known as the Abraham Accords.
The UAE and Bahrain had long maintained clandestine security cooperation with Israel, due to their shared enmity of regional rival Iran.
Those countries will all be closely watching next week's resumption of talks between Iran and global powers over renewing an international nuclear pact.
The previous agreement, which eased painful economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on the country's nuclear program, collapsed three years ago after the Trump administration withdrew from the deal.
Since then, Iran has accelerated its enrichment of uranium – a key step toward producing a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, while Israel says it will take whatever steps it deems necessary to prevent Iran from gaining the ability to make a bomb.
Earlier on Tuesday, Gantz said at a security conference that the world powers "must add a 'Plan B' to the diplomatic option" concerning Iran's nuclear program.
"There is no doubt that a diplomatic solution is preferable, but alongside it, the use of force should be on the table – since it is the continuation of diplomacy by other means," the defense minister said.
Israel and Morocco enjoyed low-level diplomatic relations in the 1990s, but Morocco severed them after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000. Despite that, the two states have maintained informal relations. Nearly half a million Israelis claim Moroccan heritage – more than 200,000 immigrated to Israel after the founding of the state in 1948 – and thousands visit the country each year.
Morocco is still home to a small Jewish community, and Rabat has one remaining synagogue.
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