Saudi crown prince to visit Trump at White House in November

WASHINGTON

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will visit US President Donald Trump at the White House next month, according to multiple reports published Tuesday.

The Nov. 18 meeting comes as Riyadh continues to seek a defense pact with Washington, and an anonymous source told Bloomberg that the leaders are expected to sign a series of agreements concerning artificial intelligence, defense, nuclear cooperation and trade. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation on the visit.

CBS News separately reported that bin Salman and Trump are likely to discuss military and intellligence cooperation during their sit-down.

Trump said Friday that Saudi officials have informed him "as recently as yesterday" that they are willing to join the series of normalization agreements that Muslim-majority nations inked with Israel during his first term, known as the Abraham Accords.

"I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in," he said on Fox News.

The comments come after Trump's 20-point ceasefire plan to halt the war in Gaza was enacted, providing a diplomatic opening for him to seek to expand the agreements.

Israel's global relations nosedived during the two-year war as several nations either downgraded ties, or severed them altogether, as evidence of systematic war crimes continued to mount. Other countries opted to formally recognize the state of Palestine, including several key US allies in western Europe.