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We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. US president Donald Trump has defended his nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, insisting it is dependent on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords and recognising the State of Israel. The deal will allow the kingdom to enrich uranium and build nuclear reactors using US technology, without requiring the snap UN inspections that Washington has previously demanded from Iran.
But critics have branded the deal“Dangerous”and cautioned it could lead to an arms race in the region. “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, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,”Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He added that the US is“Not opposed to Civil (Non-Enriched) Nuclear Facilities”. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords during Trump's first term in 2020, breaking a longstanding taboo to become the first Arab states to recognize Israel in a quarter century. Morocco and Sudan followed suit.
Saudi Arabia's longstanding position has been that it would not sign the accords unless there was an agreement on a roadmap to Palestinian statehood. Riyadh paused normalisation talks with Israel in October 2023, as it rolled out its bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas attacks on 7 October. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the possibility of Saudi joining the accords as“An historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East”.
Netanyahu did not mention the civil nuclear deal between the US and Saudi, which other senior Israeli politicians had poured scorn on, warning it could lead to a damaging nuclear arms race in the Middle East. “The nuclear agreement that is coming together with Saudi Arabia, over Israel’s head, is a serious strategic failure that endangers our security," Warned former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is seeking to unseat Netanyahu in an October 27 election. “Nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil could lead to a regional nuclear race and a dangerous loss of control.”
Former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that“The civilian nuclear program in Saudi Arabia will end in nuclear weapons and will lead to a crazy arms race throughout the entire Middle East”. The deal comes amid the backdrop of the US-Israeli war on Iran, for which one of the central justifications was the Iranian nuclear programme which Israel stated posed an existential threat. Washington has threatened to target Iran’s nuclear sites - as it did during Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 - after the war erupted again earlier this month following the collapse of a 60-day ceasefire deal.
A civil nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia has been in the works for years during both Trump's first administration and Joe Biden’s. No deal has come together before now, however, in part because of warnings from nonproliferation groups that say that it could offer Saudi a path to develop a nuclear weapon. Unlike the Biden plan, the Trump administration deal does not provide for Saudi to sign the so-called Additional Protocol that allows the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out snap inspections at undeclared locations.