The head of the American diplomacy Antony Blinken pleaded Monday in favor of a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, on the eve of a highly symbolic trip to the Saudi kingdom.
“The United States has a real national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said in a speech to the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby in Washington.
“We can and must play a full role in advancing this cause,” said the US Secretary of State, adding, however, that he had “no illusions that this can be done quickly or easily”.
But he insisted he would work on it when he travels to Saudi Arabia this week.
Mr. Blinken is due to travel to Jeddah, the Saudi port where the Saudi royal family is taking up summer quarters, on Tuesday, as well as to Riyadh on Wednesday and Thursday, where he will notably take part in a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the international coalition fighting against the Islamic State group.
A meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who reigns de facto over Saudi Arabia, has not been confirmed but seemed highly likely.
In his speech on Monday, Mr. Blinken reaffirmed the “unwavering” support of the United States for the Israeli ally, to which Washington provides several billion dollars in military aid each year, and reiterated that the Biden administration considers Iran as the main threat to the security of the Jewish state.
“If Iran rejects the path of diplomacy, then, as President (Joe) Biden has made clear many times, we are not ruling out the possibility that Iran will not obtain nuclear weapons. “, he assured, denouncing the “aggressive activities of Iran in the region and beyond”.
“Iran must not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon and we will not allow it,” he said.
Mr. Blinken again reaffirmed the support of the United States for an Israeli and Palestinian “two-state” solution, the only way to resolve the conflict in the region, which is experiencing a new cycle of violence.
He called on both sides “to de-escalate” and “to refrain from unilateral measures that increase tensions”, but also to improve the daily life of the Palestinians.
“The violence must stop,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, considered the main pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
Moreover, Mr. Blinken further underlined, normalization efforts between Arab countries and Israel “should not replace progress between Israelis and Palestinians and should not be at their expense”.
Several Arab Gulf countries, including the Emirates and Bahrain, have normalized their relations with Israel, under the so-called Abraham Accords, under the leadership of former US President Donald Trump. Morocco then followed suit.
The Biden administration has been pursuing this effort for two years.
These agreements broke with decades of Arab consensus conditioning the establishment of relations with Israel with the resolution of the Palestinian question.
A normalization with Saudi Arabia would be a regional geopolitical electric shock and beyond, especially since Riyadh and Tehran have recently begun a rapprochement under the auspices of China.
Mr. Blinken’s trip to Saudi Arabia is intended to strengthen relations that are often strained with this key ally due to the human rights situation and the oil issue.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. We are focusing on a program of action that is moving forward,” a senior American diplomat, Daniel Benaim, told reporters on Friday, summing up the prevailing state of mind. in Washington despite the many differences with the Saudi kingdom.
The two countries are also mediators in the conflict in Sudan.
Peace efforts in Yemen, devastated by years of war and where a fragile lull prevails, should also figure prominently in Mr. Blinken’s discussions.
The trip comes weeks after White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s trip and nearly a year after President Joe Biden’s trip in the summer of 2022 had mixed success.
05/06/2023 18:23:28 – Washington (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
