The US president said Riyadh does not appear ready to normalize relations at this time due to the ongoing war in Gaza and the Israeli government’s refusal to pave the way for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
US President Donald Trump has urged Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords to formally recognize Israel. Trump also said that Saudi Arabia’s joining the Abraham Accords is his “dream”.
While speaking at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday, Trump made the call directly to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump said, “It is my strong hope, my desire, and my dream that Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords soon.” Although he expressed the opinion that Riyadh will do so in its own time.
In addition, regarding the Gaza conflict, Trump said that he is working to end the war as soon as possible. He is also working to return all prisoners.
The US president said that Riyadh does not currently appear ready to normalize relations due to the ongoing war in Gaza and the Israeli government’s refusal to pave the way for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Previously, the administration of former President Joe Biden had tried to include a normalization agreement to normalize Saudi relations with Israel in a “mega-deal” signed with Riyadh. Such an agreement would require two-thirds approval by the Senate. However, the Biden administration hoped that signing an Israel-Saudi normalization agreement would be able to gain support from both sides.
The Biden administration was able to make significant progress on the continuation of the bilateral agreement with Saudi Arabia and was also supposed to begin serious talks with Riyadh. But in the meantime, Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
That attack and the subsequent war disrupted efforts to normalize relations between the two countries and Riyadh began to realize that more assertive steps would be needed to establish a Palestinian state.
As the war continued until the end of Biden’s term, Saudi officials continued to try to negotiate small bilateral agreements with the United States. However, little progress was made by the time Biden left office. The Trump administration has since moved to move forward with them.
Trump has also promised to mediate an agreement to normalize Israeli-Saudi relations. But his comments on Tuesday suggested that Saudi Arabia would not join the deal as quickly as he had hoped.
The Abraham Accords are a series of agreements to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states, which took effect on September 15, 2020. The Abraham Accords, brokered by Trump during his first term, normalized relations with Israel, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
