Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Thursday that Riyadh could potentially move “quite quickly” on some bilateral agreements with Washington even if a mega-deal involving recognizing Israel remains out of reach.
Since last year Saudi Arabia has been bargaining hard for a defense pact with the United States as well as assistance with a civilian nuclear program.
As part of that deal the Gulf kingdom, home to the holiest shrines in Islam, would recognize Israel for the first time.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month ruled out recognizing Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan reiterated on Thursday that normalization was “off the table until we have a resolution to Palestinian statehood”.
But during an event in Riyadh, he also said deals in other areas could advance soon.
“The bilateral agreements we are working on with the US are actually multiple agreements,” Prince Faisal said.
“Some of them we can progress probably quite quickly, and some of them we are working on — especially those related to trade, AI, et cetera — which are not tied to any other third parties.”
Officials in US President Joe Biden’s administration have described the ongoing bilateral talks as building towards the proposed mega-deal, dismissing the possibility of separating the different components.
Prince Faisal seemed to acknowledge on Thursday that the defense-related elements were bound up with normalization.
“Some of the more significant defense cooperation agreements are much more complicated,” he said.
“We would certainly welcome an opportunity to finish them before the current administration’s term, but that’s reliant on other factors outside of our control.”
Prince Faisal also said Riyadh had no preference on the winner of next week’s presidential election in the US.
“Obviously, we’ve worked with President (Donald) Trump before, so we know him, and we can find a way to work with him very well,” he said.
“But we also know, obviously, the team that is currently working with the Biden administration. Vice President (Kamala) Harris is part of that team, and we’ve been able to build a very strong working relationship. So we absolutely have no preference.”
He added: “They will certainly be different, whether one or the other would be better, this is not up to me to say.”
