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The United States and Saudi Arabia announced a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal, but U.S. President Donald Trump said the agreement would be contingent on Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel.
The move comes as the United States fights a war with Iran that began in large part over concerns about Tehran's nuclear program, which remains a key point of contention in now-stalled peace talks.
The deal is expected to generate billions of dollars for American companies and is seen as a major win for Saudi Arabia, Iran's longtime regional rival. Critics, however, warn that it could carry proliferation risks.
Trump said Thursday that the nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia would be subject to Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords.
"The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He said the agreement "is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords," adding that the United States "is not opposed to Civil (Non-Enriched) Nuclear Facilities."
The Abraham Accords are normalization agreements signed between Israel and several Muslim-majority countries during Trump's first term. Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have joined the accords.
Washington has sought in recent years to tie any nuclear agreement and defense pact with Saudi Arabia to normalization with Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Thursday that Saudi recognition of Israel would be a significant step towards peace in the Middle East.
"Saudi Arabia's joining of the Abraham Accords would be a historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East", Netanyahu's office said after Trump's announcement.
"The joint American and Israeli military action against the genocidal regime in Tehran and Israel's crushing of Iran's terror axis have created the possibility to expand the circle of peace."
The U.S. Energy Department said Wednesday that the United States and Saudi Arabia had signed the nuclear cooperation agreement.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, known as a 123 Agreement, along with a bilateral safeguards agreement, the department said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agreement would go through congressional approval and include safeguards.
"Any agreement that we are going to make with any country in the world on civil nuclear energy is going to be one that will have safeguards in place to ensure that it cannot be turned into a weapons program," Rubio told reporters in the Philippines.
The deal will be submitted to Congress for review, but the Republican-controlled legislature is unlikely to block its implementation.
Critics have warned that the agreement, whose text was not immediately made public, could fuel a nuclear race in a region already battered by war.
The Wall Street Journal reported that one provision could allow U.S. companies to build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia.
The Energy Department did not mention such a provision and did not respond to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) request for comment on the issue.
Trump said in his Truth Social post that there would be "no enrichment of material."
U.S. lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have previously voiced opposition to such a project over concerns that Saudi Arabia could eventually use it to develop nuclear weapons.
"Trump claims his war on Iran is about stopping an authoritarian country from enriching nuclear fuel," left-wing U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote on X.
"Now he's letting his best friends in Saudi Arabia, one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world — do exactly that. This is absurd."
Saudi Arabia, like Iran, has long insisted on its right to pursue a civilian nuclear program.
Last year, Riyadh signed a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Policymakers have long feared that if Iran produced a nuclear weapon, it could trigger an arms race across the Gulf.
Wright dismissed proliferation concerns, saying the deal was in Washington's economic and strategic interest.
"These agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world's best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States," he said.
The United States has agreements governing nuclear cooperation with more than 50 countries.
Experts said the Saudi deal had been under discussion for some time, but some raised concerns about the potential for uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.
"It would be a mistake to allow Saudi Arabia the capability for enrichment," Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council said before the deal was formally announced.
"Washington is right to strengthen its relationship with Riyadh, but it should not do so at the expense of its effective nuclear weapons nonproliferation standards," he added.
Paul Dickman, chair of the American Nuclear Society's External Affairs Committee, told AFP he was confident the deal would not create "additional proliferation challenges."
But he said transparency was important.
"I would like to see within the language of this agreement how that transparency will be measured," Dickman said.
Jennifer T. Gordon, director of the Atlantic Council's Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative, said the agreement was a "win for the United States over Russia and China."
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