An Israeli delegation participated in a UNESCO meeting in Riyadh on Monday, marking the first public visit of representatives of the State of Israel to Saudi Arabia, amid speculation about possible normalization between the two countries.
The five-member delegation arrived in the Saudi capital on Sunday to attend the meeting aimed at updating the list of UNESCO world heritage cultural and historical sites, an Israeli official told AFP.
“We are happy to be here. It’s a good first step,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We thank UNESCO and the Saudi authorities.”
The delegation, including a security official, arrived via Dubai in the absence of direct flights between Israel and Saudi Arabia, he said. Its members received their visas via UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The visit was “very good, they treat us very well,” said the Israeli official, whose country withdrew from UNESCO in 2017.
In the room, the Israeli representatives took their places in front of a table on which was placed a plaque with the word “Israel”.
The plaque caught the eyes of Saudis working for services organizing the meeting where more than 50 global sites hope to join the world heritage list.
“This is God’s command. The problem is beyond us and we cannot oppose it,” said a young Saudi, when asked about the presence of the Israeli delegation.
According to a diplomat at UNESCO, the agency’s director general Audrey Azoulay played a decisive role in ensuring Israel’s participation in Riyadh.
“It is the result of several years of work by Audrey Azoulay to create, at the heart of UNESCO, the conditions for dialogue between all the States in the region,” he said under cover of anonymity.
The Israeli visit comes at a time when rumors of a beginning of rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia are multiplying.
According to press reports, a Palestinian delegation visited Riyadh last week to discuss the way forward if the two countries were to formalize their relations.
Heavyweight in the Middle East and guardian of Muslim holy sites, Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel and has not joined the 2020 Abraham Accords, negotiated by the United States, which allowed the state Israeli to normalize its ties with two neighbors of the Saudi kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Riyadh has repeatedly said it sticks to the Arab League’s decades-old position of not establishing formal ties with Israel until the conflict with the Palestinians is resolved.
In recent months, Riyadh and Washington have discussed the conditions set by the Saudis for progress on the path to normalization, including security guarantees and assistance for a civilian nuclear program with uranium enrichment capacity. .
Saudi Arabia is trying to revitalize its oil-dependent economy and seeks to transform the kingdom into a global business and tourism hub under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 reform agenda.
It has also undertaken several diplomatic steps, especially a surprise rapprochement with Iran, seven years after the break between the two regional rival powers.
The fact that the Israeli visit was coordinated by UNESCO suggests that “obstacles” remain on the path to Saudi-Israeli normalization, said Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst and expert on bilateral relations.
“It is most likely the result of Saudi Arabia’s greater openness to the world, which will include the Israelis, and not the result (of a process linked) to bilateral relations,” according to him.
Saudi officials realized they couldn’t keep anyone out if they wanted to open their country, he stressed.
“The Israelis will certainly take advantage of this as a first step, when in reality this was facilitated by Unesco. It’s not really because of their diplomatic skills or victories.”
09/11/2023 18:27:37 – Ryad (AFP) – © 2023 AFP