Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sends a statement at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, August 17, 2020. Emil Salman / Pool via REUTERS
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel was preparing for direct flights, across Saudi Arabia, to the United Arab Emirates as part of its normalization agreement with the UAE.
Israel and the UAE announced on Thursday that they would normalize diplomatic relations under a US-sponsored deal, the implementation of which could reform the Middle East’s policy on the Palestinian issue following the fight against Iran. In more than 70 years, the UAE would be only a third Arab state to establish relations with Israel.
Netanyahu, informed at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv about plans to expand flight activity hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, did not provide a time frame for the opening of an air link with the Arabian Gulf in the Gulf.
“We are currently working on enabling direct flights, via Saudi Arabia, between Tel Aviv and Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” Netanyahu told reporters, estimating the flight time to be “about three hours, just like to Rome.”
Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel and its airspace is closed to Israeli pilots. But in what was seen in Israel as a herb of warmer relations with Riyadh, Air India was allowed in 2018 to start flying over Saudi territory on its route in New Delhi-Tel Aviv.
At Ben-Gurion Airport, Netanyahu said he “saw tremendous room for bilateral tourism and gigantic space for investment” with the UAE.
A delegation from Israel is expected to travel to the UAE within weeks to work out the modalities of normalized relations, but any rapid opening of a commercial air route could be complicated by coronavirus restrictions.
On Sunday, the UAE opened telephone lines to Israel, a link inaugurated in a conversation between the two countries’ foreign ministers.
Report by Jeffrey Heller; Edited by Mark Heinrich
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