RIYADH (AFP) Saudi Arabia will not normalize relations with Israel in the absence of a two-state solution with the Palestinians, the kingdom’s top diplomat said Friday, according to a Foreign Ministry tweet.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud’s comments on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in talks with White House National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan in Jerusalem on Thursday Talked about normalization together.
“Real normalcy and real stability will only come from giving the Palestinians a state,” Prince Faisal told Bloomberg at the summit.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is a close partner of the US but has repeatedly refused to normalize relations with US ally Israel over the occupation of Palestinian territories.
In the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords, the kingdom’s neighbors — the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed his desire to see Saudi Arabia on the list.
In their talks on Thursday, Netanyahu and Sullivan “discussed steps to deepen the Abraham Accords… emphasized progress with Saudi,” the Israeli leader’s office said.
East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in addition to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was considered the basis of a Palestinian state in the “two-state” solution to the long-running conflict.
But with the disintegration of the occupied West Bank by ghettos, that goal has become more distant than ever.
Netanyahu plans to pursue a policy of increased settlement in the West Bank, with ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups in his coalition advocating the annexation of some of the territory.