Riyadh: The United States is nearly ready with a security package to offer Saudi Arabia if it normalises relations with Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday, as he seeks incentives for Israel to support a Palestinian state.
Blinken was visiting the kingdom on his seventh trip to the region since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which has responded with a relentless offensive in Gaza that has drawn global criticism.
President Joe Biden’s administration, while supporting Israel, has sought moderation from its government by dangling the prospect of formal relations with Saudi Arabia -- a potential game-changer, because the Gulf state is guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites. As part of any deal, Riyadh is expected to insist on a path to statehood for the Palestinians as well as alliance-style security guarantees from Washington, which has repeatedly tried -- with limited success -- to shift its focus out of the Middle East.
“The work that Saudi Arabia, the United States have been doing together in terms of our own agreements, I think, is potentially very close to completion,” Blinken said.
“But then in order to move forward with normalisation, two things will be required -- calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” he told a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, who met Blinken in Riyadh, also said that US-Saudi agreements were “very, very close”. “Most of the work has already been done,” he said.
But he said that a pathway to a Palestinian state was “the only way it’s going to work”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a long-standing opponent of Palestinian statehood.