Saudi denies MBS meeting with Israel's Netanyahu

Saudi today denied reports that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the kingdom last night.

Israel Army radio had claimed Netanyahu made a secret trip to Saudi Arabia yesterday to meet Bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Neom on the Red Sea coast.

However, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud took to Twitter today to deny the news, and said that the meeting "was only between Saudi and American officials".

I have seen press reports about a purported meeting between HRH the Crown Prince and Israeli officials during the recent visit by @SecPompeo. No such meeting occurred. The only officials present were American and Saudi.

— (@FaisalbinFarhan) November 23, 2020

Netanyahu, for his part, declined to comment on the reports.

The US has been calling for Saudi to normalise relations with the occupation state of Israel and follow in the footsteps of its neighbours and allies, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain who signed normalisation deals with the occupation in September.

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