The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, sparking intense international concern over potential nuclear proliferation and a Middle Eastern arms race. <\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Energy described the pact as a “peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement” that will grant American firms broad access to the “Saudi nuclear energy program.” Both countries also signed a “bilateral safeguards agreement.”<\/p>\n
The Saudi Ministry of Energy stated that the deal enhances efforts toward “energy diversification and the development of cutting-edge technologies.” Resource-rich Saudi Arabia has long announced that it will develop nuclear energy as part of expanding its energy sources.<\/p>\n
The agreement stipulates that American companies will build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia if a joint U.S.-Saudi study proves such a step justified, the “Wall Street Journal” previously reported.<\/p>\n
According to experts, this would be the first U.S. agreement in history allowing the transfer of uranium enrichment capabilities to another nation, raising concerns about the development of atomic weapons, the BBC noted.<\/p>\n
“The United States will not sign an agreement with any country that involves the risk of proliferation,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday, July 22, when asked about mounting criticism of the deal.<\/p>\n
Critical voices emerged among bipartisan U.S. lawmakers and Israeli officials, among others, the AFP agency recalled. The agreement, signed Wednesday by energy ministers Chris Wright and Abdulaziz bin Salman, could still be blocked by the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n
In February, Democratic Senator Ed Markey warned that a deal lacking rigorous safeguard mechanisms threatens to turn the Middle East into a “nuclear Wild West.” Despite criticism, Congress is expected to approve the agreement. Overturning it would require a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
Both countries concluded the agreement amid the war with Iran, the launch of which the U.S. and Israel justified partly by the necessity to prevent Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons. Iran is also a regional rival of Saudi Arabia. De facto leader Mohammed bin Salman has publicly suggested several times that if Iran builds nuclear weapons, his country will also seek to obtain them.<\/p>\n
The possibility of uranium enrichment paves the way for creating a military nuclear program, but building a nuclear weapon also requires other capabilities, the AP agency noted.<\/p>\n
The Israeli press emphasized that the U.S. nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia does not include the normalization of relations between the latter country and Israel, which some American politicians have pursued.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact in September 2025 with nuclear-armed Pakistan. Defense Minister Khawaja Asif stated then that Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent potential “will be made available” to the Saudis if needed. Saudi Arabia has long maintained close ties with Pakistan, including what is widely believed to be the financing of that country’s nuclear weapons program, the AP wrote.<\/p>\n
The portal of “Der Spiegel” weekly expresses fears that during the war with Iran, the nuclear agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia “increases fears of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.” In this context, it points to the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt.<\/p>\n
The magazine notes that to effectively prevent the military use of nuclear technology, international inspectors must be granted access to relevant facilities. In the case of the Washington-Riyadh agreement, “it is not clear to what extent such access could be guaranteed.”<\/p>\n
“Der Spiegel” quotes former U.S. State Department official Aaron David Miller, who assessed that the agreement is a “self-inflicted own goal” and constitutes “a violation of American nuclear non-proliferation policy.”<\/p>\n
In “Spiegel’s” assessment, Trump “will present the agreement as a driver of job creation in the American economy.” At the same time, for Saudi Arabia, its own civil nuclear program is a “long-awaited goal that, with U.S. help, can now become reality.”<\/p>\n
“The population clearly feels the effects of the housing shortage, unemployment, and the war with Iran. Nuclear energy is now intended to convey a signal to the (Saudi) society that, thanks to foreign investments, Saudi Arabia is securing jobs and access to future technologies, instead of\u2014as before\u2014allowing Saudi money to flow out to the USA,” “Spiegel” reports.<\/p>\n
From Berlin Mateusz Obremski (PAP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, sparking intense international concern over potential nuclear proliferation and a Middle Eastern arms race. U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Agreement The U.S. Department of Energy described the pact as a “peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement” that will grant American firms broad access to the “Saudi nuclear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-and-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}