Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Tuesday his country wanted to normalise relations with Israel through US President Donald Trump\u2019s Abraham Accords, but first needed a \u201cclear path\u201d to Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path to a two-state solution,\u201d the prince said in the Oval Office alongside Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to work on that, to be sure that we can prepare the right situation as soon as possible,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Trump said that he received a \u201cpositive response\u201d from the Saudi crown prince about joining the Abraham Accords.<\/p>\n
The US president made the remarks in response to a question during a joint press conference with the Saudi Crown Prince, also known as MBS, during his visit to Washington.<\/p>\n
When asked about selling F-35 stealth fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, Trump replied in the affirmative, adding that they would be \u201cpretty similar\u201d to those owned by Israel, the jet\u2019s sole operator in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the F-35 and you\u2019re asking me if it\u2019s the same, I think it\u2019s going to be pretty similar,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey\u2019ve been a great ally, Israel\u2019s been a great ally and we\u2019re looking at that exactly right now. As far as I\u2019m concerned, they\u2019re both at a level where they should get top of the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to another question about a defence agreement between Washington and Riyadh, Trump said he and MBS have \u201cpretty much reached an agreement\u201d. When asked if the aforementioned F-35 jets would be part of the agreement, Trump said that it would be a separate deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to sell them F-35s. We\u2019re going to have a deal, they\u2019re going to \u2026 buy them from Lockheed,\u201d Trump said, referring to the aircraft\u2019s manufacturer.<\/p>\n
MBS arrives at the White House
\nEarlier, President Donald Trump welcomed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House, with the Saudi de facto ruler seeking to further rehabilitate his global image after the 2018 killing of United States-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi and deepen ties with Washington.<\/p>\n
Making his first White House visit in more than seven years, the crown prince was greeted with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony presided over by Trump on the South Lawn, complete with a military honour guard, a cannon salute and a flyover by US warplanes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Tuesday his country wanted to normalise relations with Israel through US President Donald Trump\u2019s Abraham Accords, but first needed a \u201cclear path\u201d to Palestinian statehood. \u201cWe want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13534,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13532\/revisions\/13534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}