Israel steps up military and intelligence talks with Saudi Arabia amid Iran 'threats': report

Israel is stepping up its talks with Saudi Arabia to improve military and intelligence ties amid growing concerns over Iran, US news outlet Bloomberg reported Friday.

Meetings took place between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the lead-up to the US-Gulf Cooperation Council Working Group gathering on defence and security in the Saudi capital Riyadh earlier this week, Bloomberg reported, citing six sources who it said asked not to be identified.

At the meetings, it was encouraged that Saudi Arabia and other GCC states "share more intelligence and integrate air and missile defence and maritime security with one another and the US", according to the report.

Further dialogue is expected to materialise in the Czech capital Prague amid the ongoing Munich Security Conference, according to the anonymous sources.

Speculation that Saudi Arabia may join the handful of Arab states who have normalised ties with Israel in recent years has grown louder since Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected Prime Minister of Israel at the end of last year.

Netanyahu told Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya in December that normalisation would "change our region in ways that are unimaginable".

Bahrain, Morocco and the UAE all agreed in 2020 to normalise ties with Israel, through the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

Saudi Arabia, however, has said that normalisation "would not occur" unless Palestinians were granted their own state, echoing a long-standing Arab League stance on the matter.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have recently cooperated on a number of issues, including the handing over of two Red Sea islands from Egyptian to Saudi control in July last year, as well as the opening up of Saudi airspace for flights headed to Asia from Israel.

On Thursday, the GCC and the US called Iran a "threat to regional security" over its cooperation with "state and non-state actors", alluding to its support of Russia over its war in Ukraine.

Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Bloomberg that despite the existence of "profound alignment in threat perceptions between the Israelis, Saudis and other Gulf Arab governments" regarding Iran, "it is not enough on its own to be the basis of Saudi-Israeli normalisation".