WASHINGTON (AN) — A new nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia is testing whether strategic competition in the Middle East is beginning to weaken the nonproliferation safeguards Washington has long promoted to prevent civilian nuclear programs from creating pathways to weapons development.
The agreement also entered murkier political territory on Thursday when President Donald Trump declared that it would proceed only if Saudi Arabia normalized relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords and insisted the deal would not permit uranium enrichment — conditions that were not mentioned when the agreement was signed a day earlier.
