Saudi Arabia must recognise Israel for nuclear deal, says Trump

Saudi Arabia must recognise Israel for nuclear deal, says Donald Trump Fri 24 Jul 2026 at 12:16am In short: A deal between Washington and Riyadh for Saudi Arabia to develop a civilian nuclear program comes with conditions, Donald Trump has said. The US president has said in a post on Truth Social that the agreement hinges on Saudia Arabia "joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords". He also said that the Gulf kingdom must formally recognise the State of Israel. Donald Trump is insisting the US deal allowing Saudi Arabia to develop a nuclear energy industry has one major condition — the Arab kingdom must formally recognise the State of Israel. In his first comments about the nuclear agreement since its announcement, President Trump said Saudi Arabia would have to join the Abraham Accords for the deal to go ahead, and also said there would be no enrichment of uranium by Riyadh under the plan. The US has long seen the normalisation of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel as one of its great diplomatic goals, given the power and influence the oil-rich nation has in the region. The Biden administration seemed to come close to achieving that, before the war in Gaza erupted and Saudi Arabia took a far harder stance against Israel. It has previously said it would only recognise Israel if Israel in turn recognised a Palestinian state — something the Netanyahu Government has refused to do. "The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords," President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. The deal between Washington and Riyadh was announced by press release on Wednesday in the US, with many of its terms kept tightly under wraps, and there was no mention of the Abraham Accords in the scant detail which was released. That fuelled anger in Israel, which immediately saw the deal as having the potential to fuel a race to secure nuclear weapons across the Middle East — even though the agreement is focused on nuclear energy. Israel has its own highly secretive nuclear industry, although it has not publicly acknowledged having nuclear weapons. Opposition politicians Natalia Bennett and Acvigdor Lieberman led the criticism of the deal on Wednesday, saying it opened the door to Saudi Arabia developing nuclear weapons and enriching uranium. Saudi Arabia has been racing to diversify its economy, and its own energy supplies, using massive amounts of its oil-wealth to fund the transformation. The US President has strengthened ties with the kingdom while in office, spruiking his personal relationship with the country's de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman. The Crown Prince has used his influence with President Trump in recent years, including working with Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to convince the White House to drop crippling sanctions on Syria following the fall of the Assad regime. Mohammed bin Salman has previously said that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would follow. President Trump previously floated the idea of Arab nations joining the Abraham Accords as part of any deal to end the war with Iran - but signed the interim ceasefire anyway, despite no countries signing up. That deal has since fallen over, with a return to daily strikes across the Persian Gulf and beyond into Jordan.