Washington (Somalia Today) — US President Donald Trump said Thursday that a landmark civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia would only take effect if Riyadh normalised relations with Israel, placing a major new condition on a deal announced a day earlier.
Trump said Saudi Arabia must join the US-brokered Abraham Accords, under which several Arab countries established diplomatic ties with Israel during his first term.
“The Civil Nuclear Deal — there will be no enrichment of material — pertains only to non-military use,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
It “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords”, he added.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later reinforced the condition, saying the agreement would collapse if Riyadh refused to join the accords.
“If the kingdom does not join them, the deal is off,” she told reporters.
“We’ll continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalised and hopefully see them joining the Abraham Accords very soon.”
The announcement cast immediate doubt over the agreement because Saudi Arabia has repeatedly ruled out recognising Israel without a credible pathway towards an independent Palestinian state.
Riyadh has said it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel unless a Palestinian state emerges along the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
It has also demanded an end to the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territory.
‘Historic leap’
Israel welcomed Trump’s condition after previously raising concerns that the agreement could give Saudi Arabia access to technology that might eventually support a nuclear weapons programme.
“Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Leavitt said she did not know whether Netanyahu had asked Trump to link the nuclear agreement to normalisation.
“Not to my knowledge, no,” she said.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, becoming the first Arab countries in 25 years to formally recognise Israel.
Morocco later restored ties with Israel, while Sudan agreed to join the initiative but has yet to complete the normalisation process.
Saudi participation would represent the biggest diplomatic prize of the accords.
Washington has pushed for an agreement between Riyadh and Israel under successive administrations, but the war in Gaza and Saudi demands for Palestinian statehood have complicated negotiations.
Leavitt said she did not believe Trump had spoken with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since publishing his social media post. However, the president had raised the issue during previous conversations.
Saudi Arabia has set its own condition for normalising relations with Israel: a credible pathway towards an independent Palestinian state, a demand Riyadh has long maintained.
The kingdom had not publicly responded hours after Trump’s announcement.
“I don’t think the Saudis want to give this air,” Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East programme at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank, told The New York Times. “They want it to quietly go away.”
Enrichment confusion
The United States and Saudi Arabia announced the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement on Wednesday.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the pact, formally known as a Section 123 agreement.
The deal would allow American companies to help Riyadh build nuclear reactors as the kingdom seeks to diversify its economy and reduce its reliance on oil and gas.
The US Energy Department described it as the foundation for a “decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership”.
Saudi Arabia said the agreement would support efforts to develop alternative energy sources while meeting the “highest international standards” of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation.
But Trump’s statement that there would be “no enrichment of material” appears to contradict provisions allowing a two-year feasibility study into whether Saudi Arabia could enrich uranium domestically.
Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, but the same technology can also provide a pathway towards material used in nuclear weapons.
Civilian reactors generally use uranium enriched to low levels, usually below six per cent. Weapons-grade uranium is typically enriched to around 90 per cent.
The agreement could also allow Saudi Arabia to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, another sensitive technology because it can separate plutonium from nuclear waste.
It remained unclear whether Trump intended to prohibit all enrichment or only enrichment to levels suitable for weapons.
The United Arab Emirates agreed to abandon domestic uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing when it signed a similar nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington in 2009.
US officials have often described the Emirati commitment as the “gold standard” for civilian nuclear agreements.
Safeguards concerns
The Trump administration said the Saudi agreement complies with the non-proliferation requirements of the US Atomic Energy Act, which governs nuclear cooperation with foreign countries.
But the agreement does not currently require Riyadh to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol.
The protocol gives UN inspectors wider access to nuclear facilities and more authority to investigate possible undeclared activities.
The IAEA said it was awaiting a formal request from Washington and Riyadh before seeking approval from its board of governors for verification measures.
The agreement will now go before the US Congress, which will have 90 legislative session days to review it.
Lawmakers could vote to block the pact, although Congress would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a presidential veto.
Critics warn that allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium or reprocess nuclear waste could fuel a regional arms race, particularly given Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s previous warning that the kingdom would seek a nuclear weapon if Iran acquired one.
Supporters argue that US involvement would give Washington greater oversight of Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions while helping American companies compete with firms from Russia, China, South Korea and France.
Trump’s intervention has now tied together two of the Middle East’s most politically sensitive negotiations: Saudi Arabia’s long-sought civilian nuclear programme and Washington’s effort to secure formal relations between Riyadh and Israel.
