July 23, 2026, 2:29 p.mJuly 23, 2026, 3:38 p.m
Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (archive image)Image: keystone
US President Donald Trump surprisingly makes the nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia dependent on normalizing relations between the Gulf state and Israel. To do this, Saudi Arabia must join the “highly respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. With these agreements, several Arab countries normalized their relations with Israel in 2020 during Trump’s first term in office.
The nuclear deal with Riyadh announced on Wednesday is “completely dependent” on a corresponding step by Saudi Arabia, Trump said. The announcement was completely unexpected – just the day before, at least according to the publicly known details of the nuclear agreement, there did not appear to be any points in it that would require such a step from Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, Trump emphasized that the nuclear deal “does not include any enrichment of material.” What is probably meant is that the Saudis are not allowed to enrich uranium as part of the agreement. “The United States has no objection to civilian nuclear facilities (without enrichment),” wrote Trump.
The deal was only announced the day before without many details
On Wednesday evening (US local time), the Trump administration announced that it wanted to help Saudi Arabia set up a civilian nuclear program and that the energy ministers of both countries had signed a corresponding agreement. The US government initially did not make the exact content of the billion-dollar deal public. According to information from US media, it could pave the way for uranium enrichment in the Sunni kingdom, which is wrestling with Shiite-dominated Iran for supremacy in the region.
The US announcement said that a bilateral agreement on accompanying security controls had also been signed. What this specifically entails initially remained unclear. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright emphasized that the agreements would ensure the highest security standards and also ensure that nuclear weapons would not be spread.
Recognition by Saudi Arabia would be a huge success for Israel
Already in his first term in office, Trump tried to anchor Israel more firmly in the region through the agreements after decades of Arab-Israeli conflicts. For Israel, recognition by Saudi Arabia would be a huge diplomatic success. The countries have no official relations with each other, but have been secretly working together on security issues for a long time. As a result of the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan began normalizing their relations with Israel.
Around 30 of almost 200 countries worldwide do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, most of which are predominantly Muslim. Saudi Arabia claims supremacy in the Arab and Muslim world. It is therefore also assumed that other states in the region could follow such a step by Riyadh. In some countries in the region, such as Iraq, contact with Israel is also punishable. A partial relaxation in Israel’s relationship with the Arab and Muslim world would still be conceivable. (sda/dpa)