Israel’s FM says visit to Saudi Arabia ‘on the table’

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Wednesday held out the prospect of a visit in the future to Saudi Arabia, and said at least one more Arab country would normalise ties with Israel this year.

“This (visit to Saudi Arabia) is on the table, there is no date yet,” he said, speaking to Israel’s Army Radio during a state visit to Azerbaijan.

In 2020, Israel reached accords to normalise ties with Saudi Arabia’s Gulf neighbours, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and later included Morocco in the so-called Abraham Accords.

It has made no secret of its desire for closer ties with Saudi Arabia, which has held back on formally recognising Israel in the absence of a resolution to Palestinian statehood goals.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said normalisation with Riyadh would be a “giant step” towards ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Cohen said that this year at least one more country would join the Abraham Accords, without elaborating.