Jake Sullivan tells the US Israeli group ‘that they will consult closely with Israel on all regional security issues’.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser has promised his Israeli counterpart that the United States will “consult closely with Israel on all regional security issues,” the National Security Council said. (NSC) Sunday.
In a brief statement, NSC spokeswoman Emily Horne said Jake Sullivan spoke to Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel’s national security adviser, on Saturday.
“Mr. Sullivan reaffirmed President Biden’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” the statement reads.
The call comes just days after Biden was sworn in as the new U.S. president, taking over from former President Donald Trump, who the administration has unwittingly moved decades of support for. US for Israel even further.
Trump strongly backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his capture over Syria’s Golan Heights, among other measures.
In recent months in office, the Trump administration has broken several diplomatic normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. These treaties were rejected by Palestinians as a betrayal.
In their statement on Sunday, the NSC said Sullivan and Ben-Shabbat discussed ways to strengthen U.S.-Israeli partnership, “including building on the success of Israel’s normalization arrangements”.
Earlier in the week, U.S. Secretary of State Biden’s nominee Antony Blinken promised that the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security was “sacrosanct” and said the Biden administration would try to build on it. the customization terms.
Blinken told a Senate confirmation hearing, however, that the administration would examine some of the promises Trump made to encourage countries to reach those agreements. He did not go into more detail as to what that would mean.
Blinken also said that the Biden administration intends to reach Iran’s “longer and stronger” nuclear deal, after Trump in 2018 withdrew unilaterally from an agreement that saw Iran agree to block the embargo. its nuclear program in exchange for lifting international sanctions.
Israel has backed the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran.
It is unclear what effect, if any, Sullivan’s promise of “close consultation with Israel on all regional security issues” would have on Biden’s efforts to resume diplomacy with Iran.