On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia stated that it won’t follow the steps of UAE in having diplomatic relations with Israel until this Jewish region signs a recognized International peace accord concerning the Palestinians.
Last week, the United Arab Emirates appeared as the first Gulf state to have peaceful relations with Israel. It took place in a US-brokered accord that emphasized similar deals with the rest of Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia.
No Diplomatic Relationships With Israel Until Palestinians Are Free, announced Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia
However, after silent days and having the same US pressure to follow a similar deal, Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, stated the possibility to take place after the matter of Palestine gets solved.
These remarks by Prince Faisal are the region’s first-ever official statement after the UAE deal with Israel. It is the third deal that Israel placed after developing peace with Jordan and Egypt.
Prince Faisal responded to the criticism of Israel’s unilateral rules of building settlements and annexation in the held West Bank area as detrimental and illegitimate, in a news conference with Heiko Maas, his German counterpart.
So far, Saudi Arabia preferred silence over the ongoing deal even as the people thought that Riyadh probably wouldn’t follow the path of UAE, its principal regional ally.
Donald Trump, the President of America’s advisor and son-in-law, requested on Monday that this would be in the interest of Riyadh to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, creating pressure on Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh opened its airspace quietly for the first time in 2018 concerning Israel based passenger airlines.
In recent years, Riyadh also followed a straight outreach to the Jewish amounts, even that appeared wary of a backlash from the public.
However, Saudi Arabia, which is the world’s biggest Arabic economy and the homeland to many religious holy places, had to face more sensitive political processes than the UAE.
Featured photo by Al Jazeera
