Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will be traveling to Morocco for an official visit on August 11-12, the Foreign Ministry told The Times of Israel Wednesday.
The trip will be the first for an Israeli foreign minister. Lapid will officially open up the Israeli diplomatic mission in the country.
The announcement came days after the first direct commercial flights between Israel and Morocco took off, seven months after the countries normalized diplomatic relations in a US-brokered deal.
While Jerusalem and Rabat did not in the past have full relations — with diplomatic offices in each other’s capitals instead of embassies — they maintained close official ties until Morocco suspended them with the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.
An Israeli diplomatic source said Sunday that the ties with the North African kingdom “will turn into full diplomatic relations.”
Israel and Morocco renewed their ties late last year, amid a wave of normalization agreements between Jerusalem and Arab countries.
Earlier this month, Lapid invited his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, to visit Israel.
“After my trip to Morocco, Minister Bourita will come visit Israel to open missions here,” Lapid said at a Yesh Atid faction meeting in the Knesset last week.
In late June, Lapid made a historic trip to the United Arab Emirates to open the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai.
Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz was in Morocco three weeks ago and delivered Lapid’s written invitation during his meeting with Bourita.
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