Trump holding out hope that Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords

US President Donald Trump reiterates his hope that Saudi Arabia will soon join the Abraham Accords, while appearing to recognize that it’s a sensitive issue, as Riyadh has long conditioned ties with Israel on the latter agreeing to a pathway to a future Palestinian state.

“We have a lot of people joining now the Abraham Accords,” Trump claims in remarks before the America Business Forum in Miami. “Hopefully, we’ll get Saudi Arabia very soon, but I’m not saying that. I’m not lobbying,” Trump quips, giving a shoutout to Riyadh’s ambassador to Washington, who is in the audience.

Trump suggested to CBS’s ’60 Minutes” on Sunday that Saudi Arabia isn’t serious about its public demand for a Palestinian state. The last time he did that, in February, Riyadh issued a statement at 4 a.m. rebutting the president’s claim. This week, they did not.

The US president calls his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner the “father of the Abraham Accords” and reiterates his belief that the agreements will be easier to expand following the US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in June.

“The key was when we took out the nuclear capability of Iran. All of a sudden, everybody said, ‘Wow, that was nice.’ They’ve been wanting to do that for 20 years,” Trump says. No countries in the region have publicly praised the US attack and Arab diplomats told The Times of Israel at the time that it was a cause of anxiety among some in the Gulf who feared it would lead to further escalation and destabilization

On the Gaza ceasefire he brokered last month, Trump insists that it’s stable. “There’s nothing tenuous [about it]. It’s a serious end,” he adds, joking that he hopes it holds, otherwise the number of wars he says he has ended would drop from eight to seven.”