Jake Sullivan tells Israeli counterpart the US ‘will carefully seek the advice of with Israel on all issues of regional safety’.
US President Joe Biden’s nationwide safety adviser has promised his Israeli counterpart that the USA “will carefully seek the advice of with Israel on all issues of regional safety”, the Nationwide Safety Council (NSC) mentioned on Sunday.
In a quick assertion, NSC Spokesperson Emily Horne mentioned Jake Sullivan spoke to Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel’s nationwide safety adviser, on Saturday.
“Mr. Sullivan reaffirmed President Biden’s unwavering dedication to Israel’s safety,” the assertion reads.
The decision comes simply days after Biden was sworn in as the brand new US president, taking up from former President Donald Trump, whose administration shifted a long time of unwavering US assist for Israel even additional.
Trump staunchly backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda, recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and its maintain over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, amongst different measures.
Throughout its last months in workplace, the Trump administration brokered a number of diplomatic normalisation agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. These offers have been rejected by Palestinians as a betrayal.
In its assertion on Sunday, the NSC mentioned Sullivan and Ben-Shabbat mentioned methods to reinforce the US-Israel partnership, “together with by constructing on the success of Israel’s normalization preparations”.
Biden’s US Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken earlier this week pledged that the US’s dedication to Israel’s safety was “sacrosanct” and mentioned the Biden administration would search to construct on the normalisation offers.
Blinken instructed a Senate affirmation listening to, nonetheless, that the administration would look at a number of the commitments Trump made to incentivise international locations to achieve these agreements. He didn’t go into additional element on what that might imply.
Blinken additionally mentioned the Biden administration intends to achieve a “longer and stronger” Iran nuclear settlement, after Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from an accord that noticed Iran conform to curb its nuclear programme in trade for a lifting of worldwide sanctions.
Israel has backed the Trump administration’s “most strain” technique in opposition to Iran.
It’s unclear what impact, if any, Sullivan’s promise to “carefully seek the advice of with Israel on all issues of regional safety” would have on Biden’s efforts to restart diplomacy with Iran.