Donald Trump has said the US-Saudi civil nuclear deal announced this week will only be approved if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords and recognises Israel, a significant new condition attached to an already contentious agreement. Writing on Truth Social, Trump stressed the deal involves no uranium enrichment and is limited to peaceful, non-military use, but made its approval "totally subject" to Riyadh signing up to the accords, adding a major political hurdle since Saudi Arabia has long said it will not normalise ties with Israel without progress towards a Palestinian state.

It remains unclear whether this condition is written into the deal's text, which has not been published, or whether Saudi Arabia has actually agreed to it. Israel welcomed the statement, with Benjamin Netanyahu's office calling potential Saudi accession "an historic leap forward for peace", though it did not address the nuclear element directly. The Abraham Accords, brokered by Trump in 2020, previously secured normalisation between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, later joined by Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan. The nuclear agreement, described by the US energy department as giving American firms access to Saudi Arabia's nuclear energy programme, now goes to Congress, where some lawmakers are expected to object, though Republicans appear to have enough votes to pass it.