ISRAELI DELEGATION ATTENDS UNESCO MEETING IN FIRST OPEN VISIT TO SAUDI ARABIA

Mon 11 September 2023:

An Israeli delegation paid its first officially announced visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday (September 11), providing more evidence of the warming of ties between the two countries. In the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, the team went to a meeting of the UN cultural agency. The US wants relations between the two nations to improve.

A Reuters witness reported seeing three Israeli officials seated in Israel’s chairs during the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO. When Reuters contacted the officials, they declined to comment.

Another Israeli official told Reuters that the delegation comprised of the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for international organisations and the ambassador to international organisations in Paris.

The official added that a delegate from Israel’s Education Ministry and the chair of Israel’s Antiquities Authority also took part in the gathering.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia or Israel.

Israeli leaders seldom make public visits in Saudi Arabia, a Muslim powerhouse and home to Islam’s holiest sites, although both sides have had secret relations.

Washington has been pressuring its longtime ally Riyadh to sign a normalisation agreement with Israel, which would be its biggest diplomatic victory in the region and would follow similar deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco known as the Abraham Accords.

Riyadh, on the other hand, has resisted US pressure and tied the decision to the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, among other demands.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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