Hawzah News Agency - US President Donald Trump says Kuwait will likely be the third Persian Gulf Arab state to normalize its diplomatic ties with the occupying Israeli regime under his auspices.

During a signing ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain officially normalized their relations with Israel. They became only the third and fourth Arab states to ever establish formal ties with the occupying regime after Egypt and Jordan.

At the White House, Trump claimed “five or six” more Arab countries were poised to agree to normalize relations with Israel.

The deals were widely censured by Palestinians as a betrayal of their cause, a sentiment echoed by regional players Iran and Turkey and Muslim authorities throughout the region.

Trump announced the likely normalization of bilateral ties between Kuwait and Israel at a White House press briefing Friday hours after meeting with the son of Kuwait’s ruling emir.

The White House said the president had awarded the US Legion of Merit, Degree Chief Commander, to Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, adding that it was the first time the honor has been given since 1991.

The White House praised the ailing 91-year-old emir as a "friend and partner to the United States" who offered his country's "indispensable" support to the US government in pursuit of its foreign policy and military agenda in the Persian Gulf.

The Kuwaiti emir visited the United States in July to complete medical treatment after having undergone surgery that month.

The emir's eldest son, Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, accepted the award on behalf of his father at a private ceremony with Trump on Friday.

Trump’s remarks were a stark contrast from what the Kuwaiti government had said last month. A local newspaper cited a Kuwaiti official as saying that the Persian Gulf state would “be the last” to sign a normalization agreement with Israel.

“Our stance on ‘Israel’ has not changed following the UAE normalization agreement, and we will be the last to normalize relations,” the al-Qabas newspaper cited the unnamed senior official as stating.

“The Kuwaiti position is consistent with its decades-old foreign policy approach in support of the Palestinian cause, as it is the premier Arab issue,” it added, quoting the official.