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B’nai B’rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin spoke with Jewish Insider about Kazakhstan’s expected entry into the Abraham Accords and its broader significance for strengthening Israel’s ties and deepening cooperation with Muslim-majority nations. Read more in Jewish Insider.
The central Asian country, which has had relations with Israel for decades, has long sought the repeal of a Cold War-era law restricting its trade with the U.S.
Kazakhstan, which has maintained diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992, is expected to join the Abraham Accords on Thursday.
The announcement, expected to be made during Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to the White House, comes shortly before a planned visit to Washington by Syrian President Ahmad a-Sharaa on Monday, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Nov. 18.
The Trump administration has sought to bring Riyadh into the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel since the Accords were announced in 2020, and has been negotiating an agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem, which reportedly may fall short of full diplomatic relations.
A Trump administration official told Axios that bringing Kazakhstan into the Abraham Accords is meant “as a first step in repairing Israel’s standing in the Arab and Muslim world” and that the White House wants to build momentum ahead of MBS’ visit.
Israel and Kazakhstan, a Muslim-majority country, have had diplomatic relations for 33 years, in contrast to the countries that previously joined the Abraham Accords — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco — which had not had open diplomatic relations with Israel. The accords marked a positive shift in Israel’s stature in the Middle East, and the relations have endured through the two-year war in Gaza.
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office, his administration has sought to expand the Abraham Accords with an eye on normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia or Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.
But they have also pushed Muslim-majority countries like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which already have ties with Israel, to join the accords. Earlier this year, Farid Shafiyev, chairman of the Azerbaijan government-backed think tank the Center for Analysis of International Relations, told Jewish Insider that his country was “way ahead” of the Abraham Accords with its decades-long close relations with Israel, and dismissed American requests for Baku to join as “a bit of media buzz, but that’s it.”
As for Kazakhstan’s motivation, the central Asian nation has long lobbied Washington to cancel a Cold War-era law that has hindered its access to American markets, and could benefit from currying favor with the Trump administration.
For over a decade, Kazakhstan has lobbied to repeal the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the U.S. Trade Act of 1974, which required the U.S. to downgrade trade with non-market economies — at the time, the Soviet bloc — that restricted emigration and other human rights. The amendment was intended to penalize the Soviet Union for not allowing Soviet Jews to leave.
In 2012, then-President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, which normalized trade relations between the U.S. and Russia and Moldova. However, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment continued to apply to Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics, which have to receive an annual waiver in order to have normal trade ties with the U.S.
As far back as 2013, Kazakhstan’s Jewish community has worked with the country’s government and American Jewish organizations to lobby Congress to repeal Jackson-Vanik. Leading Jewish organizations working on the issue came out in strong support of Kazakhstan’s move to join the Abraham Accords.
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Daniel Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, said the repeal of Jackson-Vanik would be “a long overdue course correction for both the country itself, and for our community. Working for years in tandem with others in our Jewish community, we have long called for the removal of trade restrictions on a country that has demonstrated respect for its Jewish community, established ties over 30 years ago with the State of Israel, and seeks a strong relationship with the United States. Kazakhstan will be an important player in what we hope will be an ever-expanding group of Abraham Accords countries in the months to come.”