Saudi Arabia appoints Palestine ambassador

Saudi Arabia has appointed its first”non-resident ambassador to the State of Palestine.” 

The Kingdom’s current envoy to Jordan, Nayef Al-Sudairi, gave his credentials to the Palestinian Authority at its embassy in Amman on Monday. From now on he will act as both the ambassador to Jordan as well as a non-resident Saudi consul in Jerusalem.

“This important step will contribute to strengthening the strong and solid brotherly relations that bind the two countries and the two brotherly peoples,” President Mahmoud Abbas’s diplomatic adviser Majdi al-Khalidi said at the ceremony.

Al-Sudairi issued a statement on Twitter, saying: “Sincere thanks and great gratitude for the trust of my Lord the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and His Highness the Crown Prince and Prime Minister for appointing me as the Kingdom’s (non-resident) ambassador to the sister country Palestine and Consul General in the city of Jerusalem.”

The move by Saudi Arabia was seen as yet another part of the Saudi-Israel normalisation puzzle, which, according to multiple reports in foreign media, will require Israel to make certain concessions on the Palestinian issue.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told radio station 103 FM on Monday that the the Saudis “want to convey a message to the Palestinians that they were not forgotten,” but that the Palestinian issue is not the “main issue within the talks (between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”

The Saudi ambassador to Palestine will, however, not be allowed reside in an official consulate in Jerusalem, Cohen said.

“Will there be an official physically sitting in Jerusalem? This we will not allow,” he said.