Blinken declares: "All options are on the table - Iran will not have nuclear weapons" (---)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Wednesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the normalization process with Israel, a U.S. official said. The official said the conversation dealt with a wide range of bilateral issues and was "open and honest."
Blinken's visit to Riyadh came amid tensions between the two allies, ranging from policy toward Iran to the human rights situation in the kingdom and oil prices. Washington is concerned about the deepening influence of Russia and China in the region, which has grown due to the frustration felt by some of the kingdom's traditional allies with American moves in the Middle East.
The official said the conversation between Blinken and bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, lasted an hour and 40 minutes. He said the two agreed on a series of initiatives in which "we share the same interests," while agreeing that they disagreed on other issues.
It is believed that much of the meeting between Blinken and bin Salman was supposed to deal with the possibility of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, although officials stressed that the chances of immediate or significant progress were not high. "They discussed the prospects for normalization of relations with Israel and agreed to continue dialogue on the issue," the senior U.S. official said, without giving further details.
Trying to bridge the gaps. Bin Salman and Blinken during their meeting in Riyadh, today (Photo: Reuters)
The official added that the Saudi crown prince and U.S. secretary of state discussed the war in Yemen and ways to resolve the remaining issues, with Blinken thanking him for the kingdom's efforts in promoting a ceasefire in Sudan and evacuating civilians from the country.
In March, Saudi authorities released an American citizen who had been sentenced to 19 years in prison for critical tweets, but the kingdom still bans him from leaving its territory. Despite the reforms passed by the crown prince, which included the integration of women into society and reduced the influence of religion, they were accompanied by a wave of arrests of dissidents, businessmen, clerics and human rights activists.
Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab world, gave its blessing to its neighbors, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to establish formal relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords promoted by the Trump administration. However, she herself did not join them, stressing that the Palestinian issue must first be resolved. To Jerusalem's disappointment, Riyadh even reestablished relations with Tehran after many years of disconnect and hostility.
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Riyadh's condition: a civilian nuclear program
A source familiar with the discussions between the sides said that one of the conditions set by Saudi Arabia to establish ties with Israel is agreement to develop a civilian nuclear program, as the New York Times first reported in March. Saudi or American officials have not confirmed this publicly, but the United States and Israel fear that Riyadh could turn its civilian nuclear program into a military nuclear program in the future.
Hours before departing for Saudi Arabia, Blinken made clear in a speech in Washington at an AIPAC conference that while the United States has a "genuine national security interest" in advancing normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, it will not happen anytime soon. "We have no illusions that it can be done quickly or easily," he said.
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