When U.S.
President Donald Trump lands in Riyadh on Tuesday, he will be greeted with opulent ceremonies, gilded palaces and the prospect of $1 trillion in investments.
But, the raging war in Gaza has denied him one goal he has long craved: Saudi-Israel normalization.Behind the scenes, U.S.
officials are quietly pressing Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza - one of Saudi Arabia's preconditions for any restart of normalization talks, said two Persian Gulf sources close to official circles and a U.S.
official, Reuters reported.Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told an audience at the Israeli embassy in Washington this week that he imminently expected progress on expanding the Abraham Accords, a set of deals brokered by Trump in his first term under which certain Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, recognized Israel.We think we will have some or a lot of announcements very, very shortly, which we hope will yield progress by next year, Witkoff said in a video of his speech.
He is expected to accompany Trump on his visit to the Middle East.However, opposition by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a permanent stop to the war or to the creation of a Palestinian state make progress on similar talks with Riyadh unlikely, two of the sources said..
This article first appeared/also appeared in Tehran Times