Saudi Arabia can normalize ties with Israel only after the establishment of a Palestinian state, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan said, reiterating the kingdom’s stance days after President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize it in September.
“For the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, normalization with Israel can only come through the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Bin Farhan said at a United Nations press conference with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, on the two-state solution.
“That position remains the same, and it is based on a strong conviction that only through the establishment of a Palestinian state and only through addressing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination can we have sustainable peace and real integration in the region,” the Saudi foreign minister said.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing for Saudi Arabia’s entry into the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements his first administration brokered between Arab states and Israel.
The kingdom on different occasions reaffirmed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s demand for an independent Palestinian state as part of any normalization agreement.
The current humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is a stumbling block to reaching such a deal, with hunger convulsing the shattered Palestinian enclave. There is “no credibility to have a conversation about normalization with constant death and suffering and destruction in Gaza,” Bin Farhan said.
There has been growing international pressure on Western governments to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step up efforts to address the crisis.
Trump said the US would work on a new effort to provide food aid to alleviate starvation in Gaza along with other governments and organizations, including the UK and European Union. He laid out a proposal during a Monday meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Turnberry, Scotland.
Read: Gaza Crisis Spirals as Aid Groups Say Starvation Spreads
Trump, who earlier this year proposed that the US takes over Gaza, said he is “not going to take a position” on Palestinian statehood but doesn’t mind if Starmer does.
The British premier said it was a matter of “when not if” the UK recognizes Palestine as a state, but that it must be one step along a pathway to peace.
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Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestinian state, normalization agreement, Gaza crisis
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