Will Mauritania join the Abraham Accords and reestablish ties with Israel?

Mauritania’s ambassador to the United States has denied reports that President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani is scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington this week, dismissing the claims as “fake news.”

In a statement to Sahara Media, Ambassador Cisse Mint Cheikh Ould Boide said she was “unaware” of any coordination for such a meeting.

She added that her authority as ambassador is automatically suspended when the president is present in the host country, meaning only the presidential communications office is authorised to issue public statements.

However, she insisted that “there is no foundation to the claims circulating in the media.”

Rumours of a potential meeting surfaced on 9 July, as American media outlets cited sources familiar with White House efforts to broker a renewed diplomatic opening between the two nations.

US President Donald Trump, who returned to office earlier this year, is reportedly pushing for a second wave of normalisation deals between Israel and Arab or Muslim-majority countries, an extension of his Abraham Accords strategy.

A person briefed on the summit’s agenda said the White House had explored the possibility of a side meeting between the Mauritanian and Israeli leaders, according to Semafor website.

President Ghazouani is in Washington to attend a scaled-down US-Africa summit alongside leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Senegal.

Mauritania, a member of the Arab League, severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2010 following Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead. That rupture ended a period of uneasy Israeli-Mauritanian cooperation which had begun in the late 1990s, under President Muʿāwiyah Aḥmad Ould al-Taya.

Embassies were opened in both capitals and Israeli investment extended across Mauritania’s telecommunications and mining sectors, including lithium extraction and prospecting.

Yet normalisation remained deeply unpopular within Mauritania, where public sentiment has long been staunchly pro-Palestinian.

The relationship became a political flashpoint, feeding into broader dissatisfaction with the ruling elite and leading eventually to a coup.

In the wake of Israel’s 2008-09 war on Gaza, Nouakchott first froze, then formally severed diplomatic ties.

Trump’s return to the White House has revived speculation about Israel’s relations with Arab and African states. Mauritania is among nine African countries that either do not recognise Israel or have suspended bilateral relations.

The list also includes Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Mali and Niger.

Still, some observers believe a diplomatic breakthrough is unlikely in the current environment.

Mauritanian political analyst Mohamadou Cheikh Ly ruled out the prospect of normalisation in the short term.

“Given the current political context, particularly the fragile situation in Gaza, Mauritania will not take this step”, he told the New Arab.

The analyst says the decision would carry domestic consequences, as a large portion of the population remains staunchly opposed to Israel.

“This option isn’t entirely off the table, but it is not feasible at this time.”

On social media, several Mauritanians reacted with anger at the reports, with one user warning that such a meeting would be “the final nail in the coffin of [Ghazouani’s] legitimacy, a stain on his history, and a permanent break between him and his people.”

Officials from the White House, the State Department and the Mauritanian presidency have not yet commented on the reports.