JERUSALEM – Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held secret talks in Saudi Arabia yesterday with Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, media said, in the first reported trip by an Israeli premier to the kingdom.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was in Israel last week, was also at the reported talks, a diplomatic correspondent at Israeli public broadcaster Kan said today.
The broadcaster cited unnamed Israeli officials as saying that Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad spy agency Yossi Cohen "flew yesterday to Saudi Arabia, and met Pompeo and MBS in the city of Neom", referring to Prince Mohammed's initials.
Multiple other Israeli media outlets reported similar information this morning.
Netanyahu's office was not immediately available to comment on the reports.
The meeting comes after Israel agreed historic deals to normalise ties with two Saudi allies in the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Those accords were brokered by outgoing US President Donald Trump's administration.
US and Israeli officials have repeatedly indicated that more Arab states were set to forge ties with Israel.
Publicly, Saudi Arabia has said it would stick to the decades-old Arab League position of not having ties with Israel until the Jewish state's conflict with the Palestinians is resolved. – AFP, November 23, 2020
