President Donald Trump said the newly signed US-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement will move forward only if Saudi Arabia\u00a0establishes\u00a0diplomatic relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords, adding a new condition that was not included when the agreement was first announced.<\/p>\n
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the agreement \u201cwill be\u00a0approved, but\u00a0is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.\u201d He also said the deal would not allow the kingdom to\u00a0enrich nuclear material on\u00a0its own territory.<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s statement introduced a condition that was absent from the original announcement of the civilian nuclear program. It was not\u00a0immediately\u00a0clear how the administration would alter a legal agreement already signed with the Saudi government.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia has consistently\u00a0maintained\u00a0that normalization with Israel depends on clear progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Saudi Energy Ministry declined to\u00a0immediately\u00a0comment on the conditions Trump attached to the agreement.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration also pursued discussions on a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi\u00a0Arabia, but\u00a0similarly linked such an arrangement to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.<\/p>\n
According to the agreement, Saudi Arabia will build nuclear power plants using US technology, creating a pathway to a Saudi nuclear enrichment program. The proposal has prompted debate in Congress, where lawmakers have raised concerns that\u00a0permitting\u00a0additional countries to develop uranium enrichment capabilities could eventually increase the number of states\u00a0possessing\u00a0nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
Before Trump\u2019s Truth Social post tying the agreement to normalization with Israel, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett criticized the emerging deal, calling it a strategic setback for Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nuclear agreement that \u2060is coming together with Saudi Arabia, over Israel\u2019s head, is a serious strategic failure that endangers our security,\u201d said Bennett, who is\u00a0seeking\u00a0to unseat Netanyahu in an October 27 election.<\/p>\n
\u201cNuclear enrichment on Saudi soil could lead to a regional nuclear race and a dangerous loss of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said the newly signed US-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement will move forward only if Saudi Arabia\u00a0establishes\u00a0diplomatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-556444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}