US President Donald Trump will meet on Tuesday in Riyadh with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Lebanon’s Joseph Aoun, and Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa, according to reports in Arab media on Sunday
According to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, which cited an unidentified source, the Saudi crown prince hopes Trump will accept the condition of creating a Palestinian state so that Saudi Arabia can normalize its relations with Israel.
In February, Trump had said that the Saudis no longer demanded a Palestinian state in order to establish ties with Israel, but Saudi Arabia denied that claim at the time.
The newspaper’s source said Trump agreed to bin Salman’s request to include the other Arab leaders in the meeting, which marks the beginning of a trip the US president will make to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates from May 13 to 16. Trump will not visit Israel, whose government accuses Abbas and Sharaa of supporting terrorism.
Before the trip, Trump said that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel could happen “very quickly.” However, he reportedly abandoned the idea of “”making progress on Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear program conditional on normalization with Israel.
On Saturday, reports circulated that Trump would announce recognition of a Palestinian state, but US envoy to Israel Mike Huckabee denied the report, calling it “absurd.”
Before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed close.
Two Israeli ministers made historic visits to the Saudi kingdom weeks before the conflict.
However, anti-Israel sentiment grew in the Muslim world during the war, pushing back the possibility of normalization.
During his first term, Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan and Bahrain in exchange for Israel abandoning a plan to annex the Judea-Samaria, where the Palestinian Authority is based.
Trump also proposed a plan during his first term to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would create a smaller Palestinian state in parts of the Judea-Samaria, Gaza and the Negev Desert.
The proposal was rejected by both the Palestinian Authority and allies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel accuses the Palestinian Authority of encouraging violence against Jews through its education system and payments to the families of imprisoned Palestinian terrorists.
Abbas ended the payment system in February, less than a month after Trump took office for his second term.
The meeting in Riyadh comes as Trump expresses frustration over the lack of a ceasefire in Gaza, which has been ravaged by 19 months of war.
The Palestinian Authority has already threatened to cut ties with Trump over his plan, announced in February, to take control of Gaza, expel its residents and turn it into a coastal resort.
An alternative Egyptian plan for the post-war period in Gaza would hand control of the region over to the Palestinian Authority, but Netanyahu has rejected any role for the authority in governing Gaza.
Israel also maintains troops and carries out military strikes in southern Lebanon after a ceasefire with Hezbollah in November and in the Syrian Golan Heights after the fall of Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December.
Both Lebanese President Aoun and Syrian leader Sharaa have demanded that Israel withdraw its forces from their respective territories.
Published in 05/11/2025 20h07
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.
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