Israeli media: Netanyahu secretly met MBS in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh (QNN)- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly flew to Saudi Arabia on Sunday to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Israeli media reported.
Israeli Kan radio cited unnamed Israeli officials as saying that Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad spy agency Yossi Cohen “flew yesterday to Saudi Arabia, and met Pompeo and MBS in the city of Neom”, referring to Prince Mohammed’s initials.
Netanyahu’s office and the US Embassy in Jerusalem had no immediate comment. A member of Netanyahu’s cabinet and Likud party on Monday confirmed reports calling it an “amazing achievement”.
According to Israeli daily Haaretz, aviation tracking data showed that a private jet had made a brief trip from Tel Aviv to Neom, where MBS and Pompeo had a scheduled meeting on Sunday.
Flight-tracking websites showed that the plane was grounded for approximately two hours before it returned to the occupation state about half an hour past midnight.
The jet, according to Haaretz, is the same private plane Netanyahu took several times for his visits to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pompeo has tried to coax Saudi Arabia to follow its neighbours, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in establishing formal relations with the occupation state — a rapprochement built largely on shared concerns about Iran.
Riyadh has so far declined to normalise ties with the occupation state, saying Palestinian statehood goals should be addressed first.
