Saudi nuclear deal now hinges on recognising Israel, Trump says
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Donald Trump has said that US approval of a civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia is conditional on Riyadh recognising Israel and joining the Abraham Accords. The condition links a major US-Saudi energy and security partnership to Middle East normalisation efforts, but presents a significant obstacle because Saudi Arabia has previously said it will not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.
Trump said the deal would permit only peaceful, non-military nuclear activity and would not allow Saudi uranium enrichment. The agreement, which has not been published, is to be reviewed by Congress and would include IAEA verification measures; critics in the US and Israel have warned that civilian nuclear programmes can still create proliferation risks, while Israel’s government welcomed the prospect of Saudi participation in the accords.
- Trump ties Saudi nuclear deal to recognising Israel.
- The agreement would ban Saudi uranium enrichment.
- Saudi policy on Palestinian statehood remains a major hurdle.
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Saudi Arabia and the United States have this week announced a civil nuclear cooperation deal, which would let American companies help build and run a nuclear energy programme in Saudi Arabia for peaceful, non-military purposes. Donald Trump has now added a major condition: he says the deal will only go ahead if Saudi Arabia also joins the Abraham Accords, the agreements under which several Arab and Muslim-majority states have formally recognised Israel.
The Abraham Accords were brokered by Trump in 2020 and have so far been signed by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Saudi Arabia, the region's largest and most influential power, has not joined and has consistently said it will not normalise relations with Israel unless there is real progress towards an independent Palestinian state, making this a politically sensitive step for Riyadh.
The nuclear deal still needs approval from the US Congress, where some lawmakers have concerns about it, though it is expected to pass. Israel's government has welcomed the prospect of Saudi recognition as a significant development, while it remains unclear whether Saudi Arabia has agreed to this condition or how it is reflected in the still-unpublished text of the deal.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of tying the nuclear deal to Saudi recognition of Israel argue that Washington should use its strongest available leverage to secure the broader strategic prize: expanding the Abraham Accords to the Middle East's most influential Arab state would be a historic step towards regional stability, isolating Iran and normalising Israel's place in the region far more durably than piecemeal diplomacy has managed. They contend that civil nuclear cooperation is exactly the kind of high-value incentive that can break a decades-long impasse, and that linking major benefits to major strategic outcomes is simply effective statecraft rather than coercion.
The case against
Critics argue that bundling a technical, non-proliferation-focused energy agreement with the fraught politics of Israeli-Saudi normalisation risks derailing both. They point out that Saudi Arabia has consistently said it will not recognise Israel without credible progress towards Palestinian statehood, so attaching this condition, especially if not agreed by Riyadh or even written into the deal, could look like an ultimatum imposed after the fact, straining trust with a key partner and inviting Congressional objections that the deal is being used as a political bargaining chip rather than judged on its own energy and security merits.
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Originally published by BBC World as “Saudis must recognise Israel for nuclear deal, says Trump”.