The United States and Saudi Arabia have decided to sign a preliminary pact for cooperation over the kingdom’s ambitions to develop a civil nuclear industry, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Wright had met Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier in the day.
He said Riyadh and Washington were on “a pathway” to reaching an agreement for working together to develop a Saudi civil nuclear programme.
Wright, however, made no mention of a wider arrangement with the kingdom, which the previous Biden administration had been pressing for and included a civil nuclear agreement and security guarantees in the hopes it would lead to normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Wright, who is on his first visit to the kingdom as secretary during a tour of energy-producing Gulf states, said that further details about a memorandum detailing the energy cooperation between Riyadh and Washington would come later this year.
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“For a US partnership and involvement in nuclear here, there will definitely be a 123 agreement … there’s lots of ways to structure a deal that will accomplish both the Saudi objectives and the American objectives,” he said.
The ‘123 agreement’ with Riyadh refers to Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and is required to permit the US government and American companies to work with entities in the kingdom to develop a civil nuclear industry. It specifies nine non-proliferation criteria a state must meet to keep it from using the technology to develop nuclear arms or transfer sensitive materials to others.
Saudi authorities have not yet agreed to the requirements under the act.
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The discussions had not advanced earlier since Saudi Arabia was averse to signing a deal that ruled out the possibility of enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel—both potential paths to a bomb.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been saying that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would follow suit, a stance that has fuelled deep concern among arms control advocates and some US lawmakers over a possible US-Saudi civil nuclear deal.
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Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter in the world, is aiming to generate substantial renewable energy and reduce emissions under the crown prince’s Vision 2030 reform plan.