The website of the Israeli channel i24news reports that an Israeli official made a “secret” visit to Saudi Arabia, during which he discussed several files. The revelation of the visit comes ahead of the departure of Israel’s national security adviser from Tel Aviv to Washington as part of ongoing preparations for US President Joe Biden’s visit to the region.

In the report, the TV channel specified that the secret visit takes place against the background of the process of improving relations between the two countries and against the backdrop of the visit of the US President. She noted that a high-ranking Israeli official a few days ago secretly visited Saudi Arabia, where an agreement was reached on security cooperation between the two countries.

The report said the “secret visit,” which included meetings at the Riyadh Palace, comes amid a process of improving relations between the two countries and President Biden’s visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia at the end of the previous month. noting that the two sides “discussed regional security interests that have reached a consensus in recent years” regarding common threats posed by Iran.

This came at a time when Israel Today newspaper quoted a political source in Tel Aviv as saying, “There are indeed direct contacts with the Saudis.” “With the exception of the Iranians, we communicate with almost everyone in the region, including Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Saudi Arabia has not joined the normalizing “Abraham Accords” signed by the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco with the occupying power in 2020, and recently confirmed that the normalization of relations with Israel is subject to the fulfillment of the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative. Kingdom in 2003, which provides for the withdrawal of Israel from the territories occupied in 1967 and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

In this context, reports in Hebrew say that two senior White House officials visited Saudi Arabia a few days ago to negotiate an agreement that could allow Washington and Riyadh to strengthen their relationship and move towards the normalization of Saudi Arabia’s relations with Israel. This came in light of the revelation of Washington’s covert mediation between Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in an attempt to reach an agreement to complete the process of transferring the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi sovereignty and to include a separate process of Saudi normalization steps with Israel.

The Hebrew website Walla reported that the two officials are senior US presidential adviser on Middle East affairs Bert McGraig and US energy envoy Amos Hochstein. Israeli National Security Adviser Eyal Holta is due to travel to Washington next week to meet with his White House counterpart Jake Sullivan to discuss preparations for the president’s visit.

The i24news channel website reported that senior Israeli officials have indicated that the national security adviser will travel to Washington with a delegation of senior officials from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Mossad and the Israeli army. take part in another Strategic Forum conference on Iran known as “Iran. Leshem Forum. High on the agenda of this forum is the need to develop an alternative course of action for a possible scenario of no return to a nuclear agreement in the foreseeable future. It appeared that Turkey had asked Israel for clarification as it was concerned about the importance of the extensive exercise on the island of Cyprus, which is taking place days after the visit of the Turkish Foreign Minister to Israel, during which a renewed improvement of relations between them was discussed.