US President Donald Trump said that a US-Saudi civil nuclear agreement would be approved only if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords and accepts a ban on uranium enrichment, according to Trump’s Truth Social account on Thursday.
Trump said Washington does not oppose civilian nuclear facilities that do not enrich nuclear material, comparing the proposed arrangement to existing agreements involving Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries.
Michael Ratney, a former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Jerusalem Post that he thinks President Trump was trying to manage the criticism that emerged after the agreement was announced.
"The Saudi view of normalization hasn’t changed - it still requires a credible pathway to a Palestinian state, and this nuclear deal won’t change their thinking on that, so it’s not clear where this leaves us," he said.
The US Energy Department said on Wednesday that the US had reached a nuclear cooperation agreement.
"US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Saudi Minister of Energy His Royal Highness (HRH) Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, commonly known as a 123 agreement, alongside an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement," the US Energy Department announced in a post on X/Twitter.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying that "Saudi Arabia's joining of the Abraham Accords would be a historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East."
Deal reportedly does not include normalization with Israel
The Trump administration submitted to Congress a pact with Saudi Arabia to share nuclear power technology that does not include a plan for normalization with Israel or safeguards the US has long said would stop materials from being used in nuclear weapons programs, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The long-discussed US-Saudi nuclear pact was once envisioned as one part of a broad deal that could lead to recognition of Israel, but Saudi Arabia pulled back from the possibility during the Israel-Hamas war.