Kazakhstan, one year on: The Abraham Accords beyond the Middle East

A year ago today, on 6th November 2025, Donald Trump announced that Kazakhstan would join the Abraham Accords, the first country from outside the Arab world to do so.

The announcement came as President Trump hosted the leaders of the five Central Asian states at the White House, the first summit of its kind in Washington. It followed a three-way call between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Trump called Kazakhstan the first country of his second term to join the Accords, and promised it would be “the first of many”.

This was a departure from the path the Accords had followed so far, beginning in 2020 as agreements between Israel and Arab states: the UAE and Bahrain, followed by Morocco and Sudan, the latter of which signed but never ratified. These were nations that had no diplomatic relations with Israel, and the Abraham Accords formalised them.

Kazakhstan was different.

It already had a relationship with Israel. The two countries established diplomatic relations in April 1992, months after Kazakhstan’s independence, and have kept embassies in each other’s countries for three decades. They have a strong trade and diplomatic partnership. Kazakhstan is an important supplier of oil to Israel, and Israeli companies have invested in Kazakh agriculture, water and technology for twenty years. Israelis have travelled to Kazakhstan visa-free since 2017, and Netanyahu visited Astana in 2016. Kazakhstan is home to a long-established Jewish community, and since 2003 it has hosted the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

That changes what the Accords are. They are no longer only a regional peace process. They are a network of states that have chosen to cooperate in fields vital to their interests, including trade, technology, water, food security and energy.

We have seen the benefits within the last twelve months. Within days of the announcement, Kazakhstan’s water ministry signed a cooperation memorandum with Israel’s Ministry of Regional Cooperation. In January, Gideon Sa’ar became the first Israeli foreign minister to visit Astana in 16 years, and the two countries committed to moving towards visa-free travel for Kazakh citizens too. In April, President Herzog followed with an official visit.

In September, Kazakhstan took part for the first time in an official meeting of Abraham Accords countries, the first since the 7 October attacks, convened by the N7 Foundation in New York during the UN General Assembly. And this week, that participation became a programme of work. On Monday, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Zhaslan Madiyev, led a delegation of more than 50 officials to Israel, the most senior Kazakh visit to Israel in a decade. The two governments signed a double taxation agreement that had been under negotiation for more than ten years, along with memoranda on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, healthcare and water.

Kazakhstan has shown that its multi-vector foreign policy is a plan of action, not just a theory. Days after the Washington summit, Tokayev was in Moscow signing a declaration with Vladimir Putin that upgraded relations with Russia. Astana keeps working ties with Russia, China, the United States, Europe and the Gulf at once. Joining the Accords did not mean choosing a camp. It meant adding a partnership that serves Kazakhstan’s interests in investment, technology and connectivity.

That is the blueprint, and it applies to Britain too. The UK is not a party to the Accords, but few countries are better placed to help them grow, with deep diplomatic and commercial ties across the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The government should put that network to work, connecting states to the trade, technology and connectivity opportunities the Accords offer. Britain should see Kazakhstan not simply as another member, but as an example of what the Accords could become.

The Abraham Accords began as a means of normalising relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Kazakhstan has shown that their future need not be confined to that original purpose. By bringing together countries with different interests but a shared willingness to cooperate, the Accords can become a wider framework for regional integration. The task now is to turn that potential into practical cooperation, delivering the long-term peace, prosperity and security that the region needs.