Kazakhstan will join the Abraham Accords with Israel in symbolic move to boost the Trump initiative

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kazakhstan is set to join the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab and Muslim majority countries in a symbolic move aimed at boosting the initiative that was a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s first administration.

The action, announced Thursday, is largely symbolic as Kazakhstan has had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992 and is much farther geographically from Israel than the other Abraham Accord nations — Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

Those countries agreed to normalize relations with Israel as a result of joining the accords, something Kazakhstan did shortly after gaining independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The move was first confirmed to The Associated Press by three U.S. officials who insisted on anonymity to detail plans that hadn't yet been made public. Hours later, Trump posted on his social media site that he’d had “a great call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel, and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, of Kazakhstan” and that Kazakhstan is the “first Country of my Second Term to join the Abraham Accords, the first of many.”

Trump called Kazakhstan joining “a major step forward in building bridges across the World” and said “more Nations are lining up to embrace Peace and Prosperity through my Abraham Accords.”

A signing ceremony would soon make it official, Trump, and “there are many more Countries trying to join this club of STRENGTH.”

“So much more to come in uniting Countries for Stability and Growth — Real progress, real results,” Trump wrote. “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”

Trump, a Republican, made the announcement shortly before the start of a summit he hosted Thursday evening with the leaders of the five Central Asian nations, including Kazakhstan.

Despite their previous long-standing ties, the U.S. officials said Kazakhstan's participation in the Abraham Accords with Israel was important as it would enhance their bilateral trade and cooperation and signaled that Israel is becoming less isolated internationally, notably after massive criticism and protests over its conduct in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

One official maintained that Trump's nascent peace plan for Gaza had “completely changed the paradigm” and that many countries were now willing to “move toward the circle of peace” that it had created.

That official said specific areas of enhanced Israeli-Kazakh cooperation would include defense, cybersecurity, energy and food technology, although all of those have been subjects of previous bilateral agreements dating back to the mid-1990s.

Ahead of Thursday night's summit between Trump and the Central Asian leaders, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a working breakfast with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, although the State Department made no mention of anything related to Israel.

Rubio and Tokayev “discussed expanding opportunities for commercial trade and investment as well as increased cooperation with Kazakhstan in energy, technology, and infrastructure,” the department said in a statement.

FILE - Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the Palace of the Nation in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Oct. 10, 2025. (Vladimir Smirnov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

INCHEON, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 2, 2026--

The Samsung Biologics Labor Union criticized Samsung Biologics after the Incheon Regional Labor Relations Commission (Case No. Incheon 2025 Discrimination 10) ruled the company’s exclusion of contract workers from holiday gift benefits constituted discriminatory treatment. Following this, the company changed counsel from Bae, Kim & Lee LLC to Kim & Chang, South Korea’s largest and most premium corporate law firm, and filed for review before the National Labor Relations Commission.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260402905034/en/

The union does not view this as a minor welfare dispute. It is difficult to justify a company with $1.3 billion in operating profit contesting a $10,000 matter (about $66 per worker for 150 contract workers) rather than accepting the outcome. The core issue is the decision to exclude contract workers over such a trivial cost, and then aggressively defend that discrimination instead of correcting it.

While the company reportedly argued the gift was a discretionary CEO benefit, the union stated that treating a negotiated benefit as unilateral generosity reflects a tendency to view people as costs, not organizational members.

The union added this raises broader concerns about human rights and ESG credibility. Excluding workers based on employment status and fighting labor rulings is inconsistent with the company's publicly promoted ESG values. Furthermore, the union warned that management's pattern of making such irrational decisions is driving labor-management relations into a structural conflict. True ESG credibility requires workplace fairness and respect for human dignity.

Jaesung Park, President of the Samsung Biologics Labor Union, said, “The amount at issue may be small, but the discriminatory mindset revealed is not. Such repeated irrational decisions are destroying foundational trust and creating a structural crisis in our labor relations. What the company needs now is not a determination to fight a small cost to the end, but the common-sense decision to correct discrimination and treat people as members of the organization.”

A written judgment from the Labor Relations Commission confirming that Samsung Biologics discriminated against a fixed-term employee regarding holiday benefits.