By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Middle East leaders have a “strong desire” to see expansion of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that led to the normalization of ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain.
Speaking to the right-wing Breitbart News outlet, Rubio said what was behind the mass killing by Iran-backed Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, “in some ways was an effort to stop that [expansion of the Accords] from happening.”
He added, “I think no nation, no regime on the planet, is more freaked out and anti-Abraham Accords expansion than Iran, which is why they were involved in getting Hamas to do October 7.”
Despite the effort, Rubio revealed that “there is a lot of countries out there that would love to enter the Abraham Accords” after the war in Gaza is over and that “makes Israel feel that their security interests are taken into account.”
He declined to name countries willing to join the Abraham Accords, only saying, “We’ve had more and more countries sort of come forward and say they would like to join as well from the region, including Africa. So I think it’s something we can build on, and to me, it would be one of the great developments of this term.”
Rubio also defended the U.S. decision to vote against a Ukraine-led resolution at the United Nations to condemn Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and then sponsor a separate resolution that called for an end to the war.
PEACE TALKS
He explained that the developments come amid upcoming peace talks with both sides and renewed ties between Washington and Moscow.
Rubio admitted that the U.S. tries to somewhat “peel” Russia off China amid a broader U.S. strategy to combat Communist-run China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a global infrastructure development strategy.
Under the BRI, launched more than a decade ago, China invests in more than 150 countries and international organizations through road, rail, energy, and digital infrastructure projects and the development of ports.
Yet the U.S. has expressed concern about China’s growing influence and proposes its own strategies under President Donald J. Trump, the self-declared deal-maker-in-chief.
While Moscow welcomed Trump’s proposed talks on Ukraine and improving U.S.-Russia ties.
However, Beijing has reportedly reacted less enthusiastically to U.S. attempts to weaken Russian-Chinese relations and tackle BRI, calling it an idea “doomed to fail.”
Despite these tensions, Rubio maintained that “the world enjoys” having Trump as “first off, he shoots straight and says what he means, but then also because he stands for common sense in diplomacy.”
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest Stories from Worthy News
Hamas has formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal, criticizing it as a “partial” deal that fails to guarantee a complete end to the war or a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The United States may abandon efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine within days if no clear progress is made, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on April 18. Speaking after talks in Paris with European and Ukrainian leaders, Rubio said President Trump is prepared to “move on” from the negotiations in the absence of any clear signs of progress.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced a Christian man to death on Good Friday on controversial charges of blasphemy against Islam, Christians told Worthy News.
Christians across autocratically-ruled Nicaragua “are celebrating Holy Week” leading up to Easter under the watchful eye of police and paramilitary forces, Christians told Worthy News on Good Friday.
Italy’s rightwing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says U.S. President Donald J. Trump has accepted her invitation for an official trip to Rome at a time when the third largest economy in the European Union tries to bridge differences between the EU and the U.S. over trade and security.