President Biden is considering a bilateral meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of next month’s G20 summit in New Delhi, India, to discuss the recently-reported proposal for the Kingdom and Israel to move toward establishing relations, four sources with knowledge of the issue told Axios.
As Axios notes, a meeting between the two leaders “could give a significant push to the talks the White House has been holding with the Saudi government in an effort to reach a mega-deal that could include U.S. security guarantees for Riyadh, as well as a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
Recently, the BBC confirmed that HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was also invited to visit the UK this year.
Axios did not report if such a meeting between the Crown Prince and President Biden, which would be the second such meeting after President Biden visited Saudi Arabia last year, would focus exclusively on the potential game-changing deal for the region. Several outstanding issues remain for the deal to push forward, “including a possible defense treaty between Washington and Riyadh and possible U.S. support for a civilian nuclear program that would include uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.”
U.S. officials have previously told Axios that the administration wants to try to complete its diplomatic push with Saudi Arabia before the presidential election campaign consumes Biden’s agenda.
