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Rabat – Saudi Arabia now allows Israeli flights to cross its airspace to reach the UAE. The decision followed talks between Saudi officials and Trump’s advisor Jared Kushner, Reuters reported on Monday.
Kushner arrived in Saudi Arabia along with Middle East envoys Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook to discuss the issue.
Reuters quoted an official from the White House who expressed satisfaction with the talks with Saudi officials.
“We were able to reconcile the issue,” the official from Trump’s administration said.
The official said the talks between US and Saudi officials would resolve all issues that “should occur with Israeli carriers taking people from Israel to the UAE and back and to Bahrain.”
Kushner is also set to fly to Qatar and Kuwait as part of the delegation’s Gulf tour.
The visit also seeks to discuss the Saudi-led blockade against Qatar.
The Qatari state has experienced an air, land, and sea blockade by the Saudi-coalition, which includes the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt, since 2017.
The countries claim Qatar support terrorism, which Doha has refuted, arguing that the complainant countries have no “legitimate justification” for cutting ties.
Saudi Arabia clearly announced that it is not against normalization with Israel, but set the price for such a move by demanding a sovereign Palestnian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has set a price for concluding peace between Israel and the Arabs,” Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said in August.
“It is the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, as provided for by the initiative of the late King Abdullah.”
The statement came after the UAE and Bahrain announced a decision to normalize ties with Israel.
After Joe Biden’s win to take over the US presidency, Trump’s administration is rushing to secure more normalization ties in the Middle East.
Biden is set to move to the White House to take over the presidency from Trump on January 20 next year.
