Secret meeting between Israeli and Saudi leaders failed, Friday, to reach a normalization agreement, after the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman backtracked on the agreement, brokered by Washington, according to Wall Street Journal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the Saudi Red Sea city of Neom for the secret rendezvous on Sunday alongside US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as Bin Salman held a secret meeting to discuss normalization with Israel.
Netanyahu hoped to have full assurance from the prince that the two countries would reach a normalization deal; however, he returned to his country empty-handed.
Pompeo has also hoped to build on the momentum of the so-called ‘Abraham Accords’, which formalized relations between Israel, UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, but “watched as a potential capstone to the Trump administration’s efforts to reorder the politics of the region and build a bulwark against Iran slipped from his grasp.”
Bin Salman reportedly backtracked from the normalization deal due to US President-elect Joe Biden’s election win.
He is reluctant “to take the step now, when he could use a deal later to help cement relations with the new American leader,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
The Saudi prince hopes that normalization deal “could put relations between the Biden administration and Riyadh on surer footing,” according to Saudi advisers and US officials.
On the other hand, Biden has taken a more robust posture with Riyadh on its human rights record, the war in Yemen, and killing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Biden stated in October that the US under his administration would “reassess our relationship” with Riyadh, affirming last week that he would punish Saudi leaders over the journalist’s murder.
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