US President Donald Trump has sent Congress a proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia on civil nuclear energy while insisting the pact will only be approved if the kingdom normalizes relations with Israel, an administration official told The Times of Israel.

The agreement, which was reached in July and would allow US companies to export civilian nuclear technology to the kingdom, was sent to Congress on Monday, according to the US official.

The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was not clear how Trump expects sending the nuclear deal to Congress, which has 90 session days to consider it, will advance his objectives.

“The president’s position has not changed that the agreement will only move forward if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords,” the US official said in an email, referring to US-brokered agreements to normalize relations between Israel and Arab and Muslim-majority nations.

Those accords, reached in 2020 and 2021, were between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.

Days after agreeing to the Saudi nuclear deal in July, Trump, who worked on a similar pact during his first term, set normalization as a condition for it to go into effect.

The retroactive condition from Trump followed alarm from Israel and its supporters over the........

© The Times of Israel