US President Joe Biden will travel later Tuesday - local time - to Israel, the first leg of his visit to the Middle East, during which he will also visit the Palestinian territories and then Saudi Arabia.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the priorities of President Biden's visit to the Middle East are focused on consolidating the armistice in Yemen, fully integrating Israel in the region, and working to make progress in normal relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Sullivan added in a press conference at the White House, that any normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia is likely to take a long time, but Biden will look to progress during his visits to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Sullivan stressed that the visit also aims to address what he described as the multi-sided Iranian threat, stressing that the US role in the Middle East will be different from what it was during the war on Iraq.
And the White House had previously announced that Biden would make his first visit to the Middle East between July 13-16, including Israel and the West Bank, before taking off directly from Tel Aviv to Saudi Arabia.
The US President will also attend in the Saudi city of Jeddah, on the last day of his visit, a summit that includes the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in addition to Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.
About 16,000 members of the Israeli police, border guards and special forces are participating in the process of securing Biden's visit to Israel, which begins Wednesday.
The Israeli police called the operation "Blue Shield 3", according to which the forces will be deployed in the locations between which Biden will travel during the 3-day visit.
The police will close several private roads in the occupied city of Jerusalem.
face Tehran
In turn, the former US envoy to the Middle East peace process, Ambassador Martin Indyk, said that what the Biden administration seeks is to reassure its partners in the Middle East that its preoccupation with Russia and China will not push it to ignore Iran and its activities in the region.
He explained in a previous interview with Al Jazeera that there is concern among some Arab leaders in the region about Iran's ambitions and activities that threaten stability, as he put it.
For his part, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that Washington still wanted to reach a nuclear agreement with Tehran.
In an interview with CNN, Kirby said that Iran's destabilizing activities in the Middle East confirm the importance of President Biden's visit to the region.
And Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz had said that he would present to US President Joe Biden upon his arrival in Israel the establishment of a joint force that he seeks to develop with partners in the region to confront Iran.
Gantz added during a graduation ceremony for a batch of Israeli army officers that this force would be a major tool to curb what he called Iran's aggressive behavior.
Iranian response
On the other hand, Iran on Tuesday condemned statements by US President Joe Biden in which he pledged to continue pressure on it, and said that the United States was repeating its mistake in Ukraine by seeking to form a regional alliance against it in the Middle East, and contradicting its declared desire to revive the nuclear agreement.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said that Washington is making the same mistake in the Middle East and the Gulf that it made in Ukraine, by expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) despite the warnings.
Qalibaf added that Iran will not hesitate to defend the interests of the region to confront any conspiracies aimed at destabilizing it, calling on the countries of the region to beware of any US-Israeli plans aimed at destabilizing security and stability.
Simultaneously, the Iranian Foreign Ministry responded on Tuesday to the article published by the US President two days ago in the Washington Post, in which he said that his administration will continue to increase diplomatic and economic pressure until Iran returns to compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that Biden's positions in the article are a continuation of the course of the maximum pressure policy pursued by his predecessor, Donald Trump, considering that what he called the failed policy pursued by Washington with Tehran contradicts Biden's claims in the article to find a stable and secure Middle East.