JERUSALEM (AP) — Chad will open an embassy in Israel, four years after the countries restored diplomatic relations, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the embassy would be inaugurated on Thursday as part of Chadian President Mahamat Deby’s state visit to Israel.
Netanyahu visited the central African state in January 2019 as part of Israel’s push to establish diplomatic ties with Muslim states. The following year, Israel signed normalization agreements with Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates as part of the US-brokered “Abraham Accords”.
“These are relations that we want to improve to new levels, to new heights, and your visit here to Israel and the opening of an embassy are an expression of that,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with Deby.
Deby was declared head of state in 2021 after the military announced that his father had been killed by rebels after more than three decades in power.
Deby was met at the tarmac by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Deby’s father and predecessor in office, Idriss Deby, visited Jerusalem in 2018. Chad maintained relations with Israel until 1972, when it ended diplomatic ties under pressure from other Arab countries.
The desert country is one of the least developed states in the world, according to the World Bank’s Human Development Index, and its government has been accused of widespread human rights abuses and rigged elections.
