PSCRP-BESA Reports No 163 (November 10, 2025)
Kazakhstan’s decision to endorse the Abraham Accords declared on 6 November 2025 in connection with Kazakh president Tokayev’s visit to Washington fits neatly within Astana’s long-standing multi-vector foreign policy, which seeks to balance the interests of major powers while maintaining the broadest possible network of partnerships. For Astana, supporting an initiative aimed at normalizing relations between Israel and a number of Muslim-majority states aligns with core principles of its external strategy: interfaith dialogue, peaceful coexistence, and a deliberate refusal to operate within rigid bloc politics. The move, however, has a clear pragmatic dimension — and it lies not in relations with Israel, but in relations with the Trump administration. By backing the Accords, Kazakhstan extended a meaningful political gesture toward President Donald Trump, for whom the Accords (and the broader idea of advancing peace in the Middle East) represent a signature foreign-policy achievement. Astana has been searching for credible points of engagement with Washington, and symbolic support for the Trump-backed initiative offered a convenient and low-risk way to build political rapport.
Crucially, this step does not contradict Kazakhstan’s overarching commitment to multi-vector foreign policy. On the contrary, it illustrates the flexibility of that doctrine: Astana remains firmly oriented toward cooperation with Russia, China, Turkey, and the wider Islamic world, yet is simultaneously identifying new ways to strengthen its U.S. track — in this case, through a gesture toward Israel. Kazakh policymakers calculated that endorsing the Abraham Accords would allow them to move closer to Trump without crossing any red lines for Moscow or Beijing, whose relations with Kazakhstan carry far greater strategic weight simply by virtue of geography.
Astana is, in fact, seeking a new framework for relations with Washington compared to earlier decades. In the early 2000s, cooperation centered largely on security, particularly on the fight against terrorism during the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Once the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, that agenda lost its relevance. Under the Biden administration, the format of engagement was effectively exhausted, and by 2024–2025 the bilateral relationship required new substantive content.
Coordinating geopolitically against Russia or China is not an option for any Central Asian capital — Astana, Tashkent, and others expressly rule out participation in anti-Russian or anti-Chinese initiatives. This leaves only one viable basis for deepening ties between Kazakhstan and the United States: economic cooperation, technology, and investment. These areas do not carry the geopolitical risks that could undermine Kazakhstan’s delicate balancing act.
Yet a purely economic foundation was not enough. Kazakhstan’s geographic distance from the United States and the limited scale of bilateral trade meant that economics alone was unlikely to capture Trump’s attention. A political gesture was needed — and support for the Abraham Accords provided precisely that: a symbolic but strategically calibrated step that could anchor a renewed Kazakh-American dialogue without destabilizing Kazakhstan’s relations with its much closer neighbors.
In this context, Kazakhstan’s endorsement of the Abraham Accords becomes a significant political act. It introduces a symbolic layer into Kazakh-American relations that speaks directly to Donald Trump’s foreign-policy priorities. At the same time, Astana is confident that this gesture will not provoke serious irritation in Moscow or Beijing. Unlike any form of military or geopolitical cooperation with the United States, participation in a framework aimed at normalizing relations between Israel and Muslim-majority states can be interpreted in both capitals as a neutral diplomatic initiative, consistent with Kazakhstan’s established foreign-policy behavior.
Indeed, Kazakhstan has long positioned itself as a state that promotes dialogue and de-escalation. It initiated the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia; it launched the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA); it has invested heavily in global interfaith dialogue; and it has at various moments helped facilitate rapprochement between Russia and Turkey as well as between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Against this background, support for the Abraham Accords appears as another iteration of Kazakhstan’s familiar diplomatic toolkit rather than a departure from its established line.
The country that most strongly opposes to the Abraham Accords is Iran. But for Kazakhstan, this does not constitute a decisive constraint. Astana maintains cautious, functional relations with Tehran, and potential criticism from Iran does not rank among its major foreign-policy risks. This is precisely why the Abraham Accords emerged as an ideal vehicle: they allow Kazakhstan to signal goodwill to the Trump administration without disturbing the regional balance on which its multi-vector strategy depends.
Kazakhstan’s decision was not only politically calibrated but also carefully timed. Astana acted at a moment when the broader international environment allowed for a degree of maneuverability: tensions among major powers had eased slightly, and the diplomatic climate was more forgiving.
A key factor was the Gaza ceasefire of 10 October 2025, brokered with the involvement of the Trump administration. This de-escalation reshaped the context by making Kazakhstan’s support for the Accords appear as a contribution to peace rather than an alignment with one of the parties to the conflict.
A second important element of the broader context was the renewed engagement between the United States and China. The meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on 30 October 2025 — after which both sides signaled a willingness to pursue a “pragmatic exchange” and reopen working-level communication channels — reduced the likelihood that Beijing would interpret Kazakhstan’s move as a shift toward the American camp. It is worth noting that, from China’s perspective, the economic dimension of Kazakhstan’s recent agreements with the United States is far more consequential. Beijing has repeatedly used its dominance in rare-earth minerals as leverage over Washington, while Kazakhstan has now agreed to expand cooperation with the United States precisely in this strategic sector. By comparison, the Abraham Accords do not touch the core lines of U.S.–China rivalry, which is why Beijing views Kazakhstan’s endorsement of the Accords without particular concern.
A third factor that eased political risks was the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on 15 August 2025 in Alaska. Although the talks did not produce breakthroughs and, in fact, the two sides have since resumed trading hostile statements and actions, the meeting nonetheless demonstrated a basic willingness to keep communication open, as well as an element of personal rapport between the two leaders. This temporary softening of tone made it less likely that Moscow would read Kazakhstan’s outreach to Washington as a “geopolitical choice.” If anything, given the current dynamics, Moscow may see President Tokayev’s ability to maintain dialogue with multiple actors as a useful asset in its own search for a workable modus vivendi with Trump.
Finally, in this same vein, it is particularly significant that immediately after his visit to the United States, President Tokayev is scheduled to travel to Russia on 12 November 2025. This serves as an explicit signal to Moscow that Kazakhstan remains committed to the strategic character of the bilateral relationship and is not departing from its multi-vector course.
Kazakhstan’s announcement of support for the Abraham Accords was prompted by the C5+1 Summit in Washington (this diplomatic format includes five Central Asian states and USA). A central outcome of Tokayev’s visit to the summit — and one of strategic importance for the U.S. government — was the formal institutionalization of cooperation on critical and rare-earth minerals. Kazakhstan and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding on collaboration in the field of strategic raw materials, laying the groundwork for technology exchange, support for processing facilities, American investment in value-added production chains within Kazakhstan, and the integration of the country into “clean” global supply networks for critical minerals.
Other areas of cooperation include logistics, transport, and advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence — the latter being particularly significant in light of the new domestic and economic priorities recently outlined by President Tokayev.
Kazakhstan’s decision to align itself with the Abraham Accords was, above all, a political gesture aimed at strengthening relations with the Trump administration; for Israel, its practical significance remains limited for now. President Tokayev effectively opened a “political door” toward Washington while preserving room to develop cooperation with Israel gradually and carefully, and strictly within areas that pose no geopolitical risks or tensions in Kazakhstan’s relationships with Russia, China, or its partners in the Muslim world.
For precisely this reason, an economic format is the only viable and natural avenue for Astana. Israel is a global leader in water management, agrotechnology, cybersecurity, medicine, and innovations — sectors in which cooperation offers Kazakhstan tangible benefits and fits squarely within its broader strategy of economic modernization. None of this carries the political weight that could upset regional balances, which makes economic engagement both safe and mutually advantageous.
One of the most promising platforms for such cooperation is the Negev Forum, a multilateral mechanism designed to turn the principles of the Abraham Accords into practical, sector-based collaboration.
It brings together working groups on water and food security, energy, logistics, healthcare, education, and interfaith dialogue. Kazakhstan’s participation in selected clusters would allow it to plug into the technological and investment networks of the Middle East and the United States without straying from its characteristically cautious foreign-policy posture. For the southern regions of Kazakhstan, which increasingly face water scarcity, cooperation on Israeli irrigation technologies, precision agriculture, and the management of arid lands would be particularly relevant.
A further avenue is bilateral cooperation with Israel, which Astana can expand independently of the Abraham Accords framework. Here, Kazakhstan has considerable freedom to choose the most pragmatic directions: joint projects in agrotechnology, energy, transport, innovation, and medical technology; educational partnerships; and new forms of IT collaboration. Israeli companies already have experience working in Central Asia, and Kazakhstan is well-positioned to scale up this engagement without taking steps that would be politically sensitive for its neighbors.
Kazakhstan’s support for the Abraham Accords also carries broader international significance. Astana became the first Muslim-majority country to take advantage of the opening created by the Gaza ceasefire to explore future cooperation with Israel. The move aligns with Kazakhstan’s multi-vector diplomacy, but it also establishes a new precedent within the Muslim world — particularly within the Turkic sphere.
Turkey’s stance is an important part of the picture. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pursued an overtly anti-Israeli line in recent years. Yet the Turkic world is far from uniform: Azerbaijan has developed a markedly different model, building a strategic partnership with Israel. Kazakhstan’s endorsement of the Accords falls squarely within this second, more pragmatic trajectory.
By positioning itself in this way, Kazakhstan may serve as a reference point for other post-Soviet Turkic states. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan closely follow shifts in the region’s diplomatic architecture, and Kazakhstan’s ability to cultivate calm and mutually beneficial relations with Israel could lower the political costs for others to explore similar avenues. The step taken by Astana encourages a view of Israel grounded not in ideological or religious confrontation but in economic and technological opportunity.
For Israel, this is a strategically valuable signal. Kazakhstan’s support could mark the beginning of a transformation of the Abraham Accords from a primarily Middle Eastern initiative into a broader platform for cooperation between Israel and Muslim-majority states — one centered on technological development, infrastructure, energy, water management, and interfaith dialogue. In that sense, it offers Israel a chance to lay new foundations for its relations with the Islamic world in the post-war period — a period one hopes will eventually arrive.