US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concerns over the ongoing violence in the occupied West Bank city and its impact on the progress of normalizing its relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
He was speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York where he emphasized that the current situation hinders the expansion of the Abraham Accords, under which Israel has ‘normalised ties’ with UAE and Bahrain.
“We told our friends and allies in Israel that if there’s a fire burning in their backyard, it’s going to be a lot tougher, if not impossible, to actually both deepen the existing agreements, as well as to expand them, to include potentially Saudi Arabia,” Blinken said.
He accepted that “it is not something that could happen overnight.”
The US Secretary of State raised concerns about Israeli settler missions in Palestinian villages and emphasized the possibility of a new nuclear agreement with Iran, denying recent reports of an informal deal being in the works.
Blinken urged Iran to take actions that do not worsen the situation and clarified that there is currently no agreement on the horizon.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Sayima Ahmad | 
