Antony Blinken says he hopes Donald Trump will continue efforts for rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday he hoped that future Republican President Donald Trump would continue the Democratic administration’s efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, recognizing that such a rapprochement would not occur not in the Biden era.
“We can see a future where Israel is integrated into the region, where it has normalized its relations with Saudi Arabia and with other powers with which it does not yet have one”said the head of American diplomacy on the MSNBC channel.
Riyadh has suspended negotiations with Washington on an agreement including the normalization of relations with Israel after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip. This normalization will require the end of the war in Gaza and a process “allowing Palestinians to have the state to which they are entitled”Antony Blinken insisted.
But recognition of a Palestinian state is a prerequisite “very complicated” to obtain, said the diplomat, explaining that Israelis and Palestinians were “totally traumatized” by the ongoing war. “I hope we go as far as possible, but it won’t be over” before Donald Trump came to power on January 20, continued the head of diplomacy of the Biden administration.
“The next administration will be able to decide how it intends to proceed”estimated Mr. Blinken. The Saudi kingdom has never recognized Israel and did not join the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, which saw its neighbors Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates establish formal ties with Israel, as does Morocco.
Mr. Blinken called “very good thing” the signing of the Abraham Accords during Donald Trump’s first term. “Now the opportunity is there – and I know it’s something that the president [Trump] will focus – to expand their application to the Saudis”he continued.
In September, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed Bin Salman, said his country would not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until after the “creation of a Palestinian state”castigating «the crimes» Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
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