Trump tells Netanyahu Saudi normalization remains tied to US nuclear deal – report

Saudi official confirms Riyadh still open to normalization deal with Israel, as President Trump reportedly tells Prime Minister Netanyahu that normalization is a condition for US-Saudi nuclear agreement.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

President Donald Trump assured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington views its newly signed civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia as part of a broader effort to establish diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Israel, according to a senior Israeli official.

The assurance came during Netanyahu’s White House meeting with Trump on Tuesday, amid Israeli concerns that the US had granted Saudi Arabia one of its principal demands without securing progress toward normalization in return.

Trump told Netanyahu that he considers the nuclear agreement part of the process through which Saudi Arabia would eventually join the Abraham Accords, the Israeli official said Wednesday.

The comments were followed by a rare indication from a Saudi diplomatic official that normalization had not been abandoned despite the regional war and Riyadh’s continuing disagreements with Israel.

“The Israeli issue, regarding normalization and joining the Abraham Accords, was not taken off the table during the war,” the Saudi official told Israel Hayom.

The official also said Saudi Arabia’s plans for a civilian nuclear program did not conflict with the possibility of establishing relations with Israel, suggesting that Riyadh sees the two diplomatic tracks as compatible.

The remarks do not indicate that Saudi Arabia has dropped its longstanding conditions for normalization. Saudi officials have repeatedly said the kingdom will not establish formal relations with Israel without a credible and irreversible path toward the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu has rejected Palestinian statehood, particularly in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, leaving a substantial gap between the Israeli and Saudi positions.

The dispute over the nuclear agreement emerged after US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed a civilian nuclear cooperation pact on July 22.

The agreement, known as a Section 123 agreement, creates the legal foundation for US companies to participate in Saudi Arabia’s planned nuclear-energy industry. The Energy Department described it as a decades-long, multibillion-dollar partnership that would support American nuclear exports while maintaining nonproliferation safeguards.

Neither the initial US announcement nor the Saudi government’s statement mentioned normalization with Israel as a condition of the agreement.

That omission alarmed Israeli officials and supporters of the Abraham Accords, who feared Washington had surrendered one of its strongest sources of leverage over Riyadh.

A day later, Trump announced that implementation of the agreement was “totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt subsequently said that unless Saudi Arabia normalized relations with Israel, “the deal is off.”

“We’ll continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalized and hopefully see them joining Abraham Accords very soon,” Leavitt said.

Trump also insisted that the agreement would not allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, writing that “there will be no enrichment of material.”

That assertion has not completely resolved questions about the agreement’s terms. The full text has not been released publicly, and reports citing officials familiar with the pact said it could allow the construction of a US-operated enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia if a joint two-year study determines that such a project is necessary.

Uranium enrichment can be used to produce fuel for civilian reactors, but the same technology can also be used to produce weapons-grade material. The possibility of enrichment inside Saudi Arabia has therefore drawn scrutiny from Israeli officials, members of Congress and nuclear-nonproliferation specialists.

The agreement also reportedly does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol, which would provide the UN nuclear watchdog with expanded inspection and verification powers.

US officials have maintained that the pact meets high nonproliferation standards and gives Washington greater oversight than Saudi Arabia would receive by working with Russia or China.

“The US is not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after the deal was announced.

Netanyahu’s office welcomed Trump’s public normalization condition, describing Saudi Arabia’s potential entry into the Abraham Accords as a “historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.”

The senior Israeli official said Netanyahu could publicly oppose the nuclear agreement if Washington moved ahead with it without corresponding Saudi progress toward normalization.

Donald TrumpIsrael-Saudi relationsSaudi Arabia