#Pompeo takes part in reported secret Netanyahu-MBS meeting

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took part in a secret meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman — the first known summit between the longtime Middle Eastern foes, according to reports.

The leaders discussed several issues during the meeting on Sunday, including normalizing ties and addressing Iran, a shared enemy of the two nations, a senior Saudi official told the Wall Street Journal.

The first-of-its-kind meeting, which lasted a couple of hours, comes amid a push from the Trump administration to normalize diplomatic relations between Arab nations and Israel.

Yossi Cohen, head of Israeli spy agency Mossad, was also present. He has played a key role in negotiations to broker diplomatic relations with the kingdom, according to the Washington Post.

Netanyahu flew in a Gulfstream IV jet belonging to Ehud “Udi” Angel, a prominent Israeli businessman whose jet had been used for previous diplomatic trips, from Tel Aviv to Neom, a city in the Tabuk Province of Saudi Arabia, Sunday evening, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing Israeli officials.

Pompeo is finishing up a seven-nation tour of Europe and the Middle East, which included a visit to an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

He tweeted pictures of his meeting with the Saudi crown prince but did not offer any acknowledgment of MBS’s Israeli counterpart.

“Pleasure to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Our security and economic partnership is strong and we’ll continue to harness it to advance efforts to counter malign Iranian influence in the Gulf, economic goals under the Vision 2030 plan, and human rights reform,” he wrote in one of a series of tweets late Sunday evening.

The meeting itself was kept so under wraps that Netanyahu declined to inform Defense Minister Benny Gantz or Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi of it prior to it taking place.

Pompeo did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on the reported meeting.

Representatives for the Israeli and Saudi leaders did not respond to media requests for comment.

In September, the UAE, Bahrain and Israel signed the “Abraham Accords” normalizing relations between Israel and the two Arab nations.

In signing the agreement, they became the third and fourth Arab countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. The breakthrough also established direct commercial flights between Israel and the UAE.

At first, the Saudis voiced opposition to such arrangements.

By October, Cohen had told associates that the Saudis would be willing to come to the table once the US presidential election was decided and both could better predict what foreign policy direction the America would take, the Washington Post reported.

In an interview with Reuters over the weekend, Saudi Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, who serves as the country’s foreign minister, said that the kingdom has “supported normalization with Israel for a long time, but one very important thing must happen first: a permanent and full peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.”

With Post Wires