An Israeli delegation participated on Monday (September 11th) in Riyadh, in a meeting of UNESCO, the first public visit of representatives of the State of Israel to Saudi Arabia, amid speculation about a possible normalization between the two countries.
A Middle Eastern heavyweight and custodian of Muslim holy sites, Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel and has not adhered to the 2020 Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, which allowed the Israeli state to normalize its ties with two neighbors of the Saudi kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
"We are happy to be here. It's a good first step," an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "We thank UNESCO and the Saudi authorities," he added.
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An AFP correspondent saw members of the Israeli delegation sitting in the meeting room. On the table in front of them, a plaque with the word "Israel" written on it.
An expanded meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is currently being held in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it stands by the decades-old Arab League's position of not establishing formal ties with Israel until the conflict with the Palestinians is resolved.
Palestinian demands
In recent months, Riyadh and Washington have discussed Saudi Arabia's conditions for progress towards normalization, including security assurances and assistance for a civilian nuclear program with uranium enrichment capability.
Saudi Arabia needs to know if the Israelis are "working for tangible progress to be made in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi analyst at the Naif Arab University for Security Sciences in Riyadh, told AFP in August.
Despite the lack of relations, Riyadh had announced in July 2022 the opening of its airspace to "all carriers", including Israelis. At the time, the kingdom denied that the move was a sign of normalization.
Last August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Saudi authorities for their "warm attitude" towards Israeli passengers after a plane flying from Seychelles to Tel Aviv landed in the western city of Jeddah.
The same month, a summit in Egypt between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "discussed US efforts to achieve normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the Palestinian Authority's demands for signing such an agreement." said a Palestinian source close to the matter.
Egypt and Jordan, the first Arab countries to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively, are Riyadh's major regional allies.
With AFP
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