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'We heard Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman clearly say that he wants to match any nuclear capability achieved by Iran. His intentions are no secret, and they must be part of the administration’s considerations,' said a U.S. non-proliferation expert

Leading American and Israeli experts are warning the Biden administration not to accept Saudi demands for uranium enrichment on the Kingdom’s soil as part of a future U.S.-Saudi-Israeli agreement.

The comments offered by several experts in both countries come days after Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidante of Prime Minister Netanyahu, did not rule out uranium enrichment on Saudi soil during an interview with PBS.

Dermer was asked more than once by the U.S. news network if Israel, under Netanyahu’s current government, will oppose such a thing. Dermer did not provide a yes-or-no answer. He did, however, apply pressure on the Biden administration to accept Saudi Arabia’s demands by stating that if they don’t get what they want from the U.S., the Saudis could get a Chinese or French-supported nuclear program, including uranium enrichment.

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Hours after Haaretz published key quotes from the interview on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office clarified that Israel will not allow any of its neighbors to develop a nuclear weapons program. The statement, however stopped short of addressing the enrichment question.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refused to get into details about potential Saudi nuclear demands in a press briefind held on Tuesday, saying they should remain in "diplomatic channels for now."

Robert Einhorn of the Brookings Institution, formerly a senior U.S. State Department official responsible for non-proliferation, told Haaretz that the U.S. has a clear interest to be involved in any future Saudi civil nuclear program. He added that it is also in their interest to not have such a program affiliated with China or Russia. Still, Einhorn cautioned, that does not mean the Biden administration should agree to any Saudi demand, especially on the issue of uranium enrichment.

“I can imagine the U.S. helping to develop Saudi uranium deposits, having Saudi uranium enriched abroad and then sent back to the Kingdom to fuel U.S.-built nuclear power reactors. The Saudis may also see commercial gains in exporting their uranium. But it would be too dangerous for the United States to support an enrichment facility on Saudi soil,” he explained.

Giving the Saudis the necessary technology for such a facility, and the political backing for it, would be a mistake, Einhorn added. “We heard Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman clearly say that he wants to match any nuclear capability achieved by Iran. His intentions are no secret, and they must be part of the administration’s considerations.”

Einhorn said he was “surprised” by Dermer’s comments on PBS, which didn't clearly rule out a Saudi enrichment program. Regardless, Einhorn said that even if Israel is prepared to tolerate such a Saudi program, the deal wouldn't necessarily win over skeptical U.S. Senators. He added that, in any deal, the U.S. would insist on rigorous IAEA verification measures, such as the Additional Protocol. The Additional Protocols provide additional tools to verify the peaceful use of nuclear material. “I’m skeptical MBS would agree to it or the U.S. approach on enrichment,” Einhorn said.

Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Materials Security Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative told Haaretz that “having Israel on board with a U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement would make it easier for the Biden administration to clear the deal through Congress—not an insignificant challenge."

'In terms of implications for nuclear proliferation," Brewer said, "the details of such an agreement would matter a lot. There’s a big difference, for example, between an agreement that green lights Saudi enrichment with U.S. assistance, and a so-called 'Gold Standard' agreement where Saudi forswears such technology.”

Brewer added, however, that “it need not, and probably won’t, be a binary choice. Between those two ends of the spectrum there are other options that can potentially address Saudi’s energy needs and U.S. interests. One option, for example, would be to simply defer the decision on enrichment to a later date.”

Like Einhorn, he said that the U.S. has an interest “to provide Saudi with nuclear energy technology,” but added that such a deal must include “strong nonproliferation assurances."

Eli Levite, who was the deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, offered a significant dose of caution to the Biden administration in an article published this week on The Hill, titled “Biden should rethink the Saudi Arabia-Israel normalization deal.”

The former senior Israeli official warned that “delivering enrichment technology [to Riyadh] will seriously undermine the U.S. championship of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, breaking once again one of its core pillars.” He added that such action “is bound to immediately unleash demands from U.S. allies and partners to receive no lesser treatment, and likely trigger retaliatory actions from its rivals and competitors.”

In a conversation with Haaretz, Levite noted that close allies of the U.S. such as the United Arab Emirates and South Korea have accepted stronger restrictions on their nuclear programs, and will see U.S. support for enrichment on Saudi soil as a justification to demand the same. “The U.S. will be setting a dangerous precedent if it agrees to such a demand, and there are much better options to develop a civilian program in Saudi Arabia," he added.

Concerns over the enrichment issue were also expressed by several former heads of the Israeli National Security Council. Warnings even came from Netanyahu's appointees Ya’akov Nagel and Meir Ben Shabat, who unlike most former senior Israeli security officials are not constant critics of the current Prime Minister. Ben Shabat said that "Saudi Arabia joining the nuclear club would produce a widening of nuclear proliferation in the region. Other countries would work to acquire uranium enrichment capabilities in their own territory."

Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think-tank known for its strong opposition to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, has also come out against Saudi enrichment. Dubowitz wrote on his Twitter account following Dermer’s interview that “there are at least 18 countries with civilian nuclear energy programs with no domestic uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing. No reason Saudi Arabia can’t join this peaceful club.”

Dubowitz has advocated for the Biden administration to take a different approach: reinstating sanctions on Iran instead of negotiating with it over new ‘understandings’ on the nuclear issue, and restoring “zero enrichment as the international standing.” He believes such a move will weaken the Saudi motivation for capabilities that can become in the future the basis for a nuclear weapons program.

Dubowitz warned that “unless Israel opposes Saudi enrichment, the Biden administration and Congress will fold with severe consequences for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and Asia. No one will be more of a nuclear catholic than the Israeli atomic pope.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer and former U.S. Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller wrote in Foreign Affairs that when it comes to Saudi Arabia and Israel, “no deal is better than a bad deal,” and while expressing support for the goal of an Israeli-Saudi agreement, they warned that on the nuclear issue, the U.S. must insist on several red lines.

“Any export of U.S. nuclear technology to the kingdom must involve three ironclad Saudi commitments: to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington that includes strong nonproliferation requirements, to sign and ratify the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that strengthens the verification capabilities of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and to allow onsite American inspection and electronic monitoring of their facilities.”

They added that “even if Riyadh agrees to these measures, the United States should draw the line at granting Saudi Arabia the right to enrich uranium and the ability to control the fuel cycle. Ultimately, U.S. global nonproliferation policy should outweigh other considerations, as it nearly always has. The fact that MBS has expressed interest in acquiring nuclear weapons only underscores the need for caution.”

In the same magazine, senior UCLA expert Dalia Dassa Kaye wrote in an article warning against the broader risks of a deal with Saudi Arabia, that the kingdom’s nuclear demands could draw strong pushback from Congress. “The United States cooperates on civilian nuclear programs with other Gulf states, such as the United Arab Emirates, but those agreements do not allow for domestic uranium enrichment,” she noted, while adding that the administration’s expectations of Saudi Arabia detaching itself from China were unrealistic.

Brian Katulis, vice president of the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told Haaretz that the current agreement being discussed is “nowhere fully baked” and that more time could be needed to “get it right.” He added that “it would be a mistake to rush this because of some artificial deadlines linked to politics in particular countries” – hinting both at the 2024 U.S. election and at Netanyahu’s hope of securing a major diplomatic “win” in the near future in order to weaken the protest movement against his government’s judicial overhaul.

Katulis said that Dermer’s remarks on PBS “seemed to project how overly eager the current Israeli government might be for a possible deal involving Saudi Arabia - and taking such a public stance at this point probably doesn't help produce progress in the actual discussions that might be going on right now.”

Ori Rabinowitz, an Israeli historian specializing in nuclear proliferation, wrote on Twitter that whatever dangers Saudi enrichment capabilities pose to Israel, they are negligible compared to other actions taken by Netanyahu’s “messianic, fanatic and extremist government.”