Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will pay a bilateral visit to Vienna on Thursday. A working meeting with Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) is planned for the morning. It is Cohen’s first visit to Austria since he took office as Foreign Minister at the end of December 2022. Cohen is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing religious government.
Only on Tuesday did Schallenberg and Cohen meet at a four-way meeting with counterparts from Slovakia (Miroslav Wlachovský) and the Czech Republic (Jan Lipavský) in Bratislava. Cohen visited Hungary on Wednesday. According to the Foreign Ministry, the topics of the bilateral meeting in Vienna will be current developments in the Middle East and the global effects of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, in addition to bilateral relations.
The situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories had recently escalated dangerously. Since the new right-wing religious government took office, there have also been strong domestic tensions. Tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets for weeks to protest against the government’s controversial judicial reform. The reform should make it possible, for example, to overturn decisions of the Supreme Court with a simple parliamentary majority. Critics see this as a serious threat to Israel’s democracy.
Israel has repeatedly clearly condemned the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, but overall the country has remained rather cautious and has so far also refused to supply arms to Ukraine. Among other things, Russia has a major influence on the situation in Syria. In the neighboring country, Israel wants to prevent its arch-enemy Iran and militias allied with it, such as Hezbollah, from expanding their military influence.
2023-05-31 19:52:02
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