Saudi foreign minister: No meeting planned with Netanyahu

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia’s international minister acknowledged no meeting is deliberate between the dominion’s crown prince and Israel’s top minister, a train it sounds as if meant to quash reports circulating in Israeli media this week of an alleged summit between the 2.

“There may perchance be no longer any meeting deliberate between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saudi Arabia’s policy has been very definite since the starting of this battle,” Distant places Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud suggested the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya English files website online in a characterize on Thursday.

“There need to no longer any kin between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the dominion stands firmly at the motivate of Palestine,” the minister acknowledged, adding that it be now no longer uncommon to comprise shared interests with Israel in countering Iran since there are hundreds diversified countries with a identical policy.

Silent, the train used to be an odd rebuttal by the dominion’s most senior diplomat to reports circulating in Israeli media, which had reported that a meeting used to be being deliberate between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two countries build now no longer comprise formal diplomatic kin, no matter quietly strengthening ties in past years.

Reports emerged remaining week on the Israel Hayom files website online, which quoted unnamed Arab diplomats as asserting there had been discussions among the USA, Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to prepare a summit in Cairo that may perchance well comprise the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Bahrain and Oman.

Whispers of a meeting with Saudi crown prince may perchance well also motivate bolster a politically embattled Netanyahu as he tries to fend off a slew of prison corruption charges and squares off for a third time in now no longer up to a year in opposition to an an increasing number of standard opponent inelections next month.

The young crown prince is seen as much less sympathetic toward the Palestinians and additional amenable to security cooperation with Israel than his father, King Salman.

Saudi Arabia continues to publicly stress it isn’t softening its insurance policies toward Israel. It now no longer too prolonged prior to now rebuffed solutions that Israelis would be granted visas to the dominion fo llowing a alternate in Israel and enable Israeli voters to dash to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia expressed strengthen for PresidentDonald Trump’s efforts at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian battle, however days later joined diversified Muslim worldwide locations in rejecting the White Dwelling’s belief as “biased.”

Within the meantime, Netanyahu is working to bolster Israel’s ties with a vary of Arab states in the absence of a peace contend with the Palestinians. He secured a uncommon meeting with the head of Sudan’s transitional government in Uganda earlier this month and afterwards announced that the 2 countries had been “normalizing kin.” The meeting used to be seen as of project for Sudan to employ Israel’s standing in Washington as leverage to motivate Khartoum come out of its global pariah situation and rebuild its economy.