News - Middle East: The United States expects more Arab states to make moves to normalize their ties with the Israeli regime during the forthcoming visit of President Joe Biden to the West Asia region.

Barbara Leaf, the top US diplomat for Middle East affairs, at a congressional hearing on Thursday said Biden’s visit could bring new developments pertaining to the so-called Abraham Accords as Washington continues to bat for greater cooperation between Israel and the Arab states.

"We are working in the space that isnot in the public domain with a couple of other countries," Leaf told lawmakers. "I think you will see some interesting things around the time of the president's visit."

She stopped short of naming any countries on being asked to elaborate, declaring that she “wouldn't want to step on the president's toes.”

The senior US official claimed that the United Arab Emirates-Israel relationship was “going like gangbusters" but that the Biden administration also wanted to encourage broader cooperation.

The UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020 became the first Arab countries in decades to normalize relations with Israel in a deal brokered by former US President Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia is yet to jump on the bandwagon, but the two sides have seen growing contacts and de-facto rapprochement in recent years, despite claims that it is committed to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions normalizing ties with Israel on the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

The kingdom in November 2020 granted permission for Israeli airlines to use its airspace, hours before the first Israeli flight to the United Arab Emirates was set to take off.