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Worldnews

US And Saudi Arabia Agree To $142bn Weapons Sale During Trump Visit

The White House says an agreement with Saudi Arabia includes investments in weapons and technology totaling $600bn. The administration of United States President Donald Trump says that Saudi Arabia will invest $600bn in the United States, including through technology partnerships and a weapons sales agreement worth $142bn. A fact sheet shared by the White House on Tuesday explains that the agreement, which also includes collaboration in areas such as energy and mineral development, is the largest-ever weapons sale between the two countries. “The deals celebrated today are historic and transformative for both countries and represent a new golden era of partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” the fact sheet reads. The pact represents a deepening of economic and military ties between the two countries, a trend that has continued for decades under both Republican and Democratic US presidents. Trump was in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour, marking the first major international trip of his second term as president. Later in the week, he is expected to make stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. But already, the trip has renewed criticisms that Trump may use the diplomatic outing to advance personal interests. The proposed transfer of a $400m luxury aeroplane, for instance, from Qatar to the US Department of Defence has raised questions in the US about the ethics and constitutionality of accepting gifts from foreign governments. During his first term as president, in 2017, Trump likewise included Saudi Arabia on his first major trip abroad, a voyage that similarly culminated in a multibillion-dollar arms deal. But the global outcry over the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a consulate in Istanbul briefly threatened to upend the relationship. The US government has alleged that forces linked to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman were responsible for the killing. Tuesday’s agreement is designed to help modernise the Saudi military with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen US defense firms”, according to the White House fact sheet. “The first key component of this is upgrading the defence capabilities of Saudi Arabia,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hashem Ahelbarra reported from Riyadh. “This is a country that has been trying to invest vast amounts of money over the last few years” in its military, he added. But the newly minted deal is not limited to security cooperation. The agreement also lays out a plan in which Saudi Arabia will invest $20bn in energy infrastructure and data centres for artificial intelligence in the US, a significant infusion of cash into industries with close ties to the Trump administration. In both areas, US companies stand to reap a potential windfall. “Saudi Arabia wants to become one of the top global investors in artificial intelligence, and that’s why you see many tech CEOs here in Riyadh, who are looking forward to getting some of those contracts,” said Ahelbarra. The deal also includes references to collaboration on energy infrastructure and mineral investments, without offering many details. Various US administrations, including during Trump’s first term in office, have used the inducement of greater collaboration on security and arms sales to push Saudi Arabia to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel. The two countries have never had formal diplomatic ties. But during Trump’s first term, the Republican leader initiated a series of agreements known as the Abraham Accords to boost ties between Israel and various Middle East states. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan agreed to recognise Israel as part of the agreements. But Saudi Arabia has been a holdout — and normalising ties between it and Israel could be seen as a crowning achievement for the second Trump administration. Israel’s war in Gaza, however, has complicated those efforts. United Nations experts have warned that Israel’s actions in Gaza were consistent with genocide, and South Africa has accused Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice. The International Criminal Court, meanwhile, has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant over accusations of war crimes. The spiralling death toll in Gaza and allegations of human rights abuses have caused outrage in the region and hardened Riyadh’s insistence that normalisation should come only as part of a wider agreement on a Palestinian state, a move Israel is not willing to consider. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Worldnews

Zelenskyy Will Have Face-to-face Talks In Istanbul, But Will Putin?

The Ukrainian leader will travel to meet Turkiye’s Erdogan and see if his Russian counterpart turns up. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will travel to Turkiye this week and wait to have face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid intensive pressure from the United States administration and European leaders to find a settlement to end the more than three-year-long war. Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he will be in Ankara on Thursday to conduct the negotiations. He will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the two will wait for Putin to arrive, he said. Zelenskyy and Erdogan would then both travel to Istanbul. Putin has not yet said whether he will be at the talks he proposed. Moscow has not directly responded to Zelenskyy’s challenge for Putin to meet him in person at the negotiating table. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again refused on Tuesday to tell reporters whether Putin will travel to Istanbul and who else might represent Russia at the potential talks. “As soon as the president considers it necessary, we will make an announcement,” Peskov said. Russia has only said it would send a delegation to Istanbul “without preconditions”. If Zelenskyy and Putin were to meet on Thursday, it would be their first face-to-face meeting since December 2019. Much has changed since then. United States President Donald Trump has urged the two sides to attend as part of Washington’s efforts to stop the fighting. Trump has offered to join the talks himself. Trump said on Monday he was “thinking about actually flying over” to Istanbul to attend the negotiations. That was welcomed by Zelenskyy, but there was no reaction from Moscow. “All of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkiye. This is the right idea. We can change a lot,” Zelenskyy said. Trump publicly asked Zelenskyy to attend, after Putin on Sunday proposed the direct talks following a rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine and its Western allies insisted should come first. The Ukrainian leader said he would, but that Putin should also attend in person. On Tuesday, his adviser Mykhailo Podolyak reiterated that Zelenskyy would only meet Putin and no other members of the Russian delegation. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pressed again for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire on Tuesday. “We are waiting for Putin’s agreement,” he said. “We agree that, in case there is no real progress this week, we then want to push at European level for a significant tightening of sanctions … We will focus on further areas, such as the energy sector and the financial market,” Merz added. He welcomed Zelenskyy’s readiness to travel to Istanbul, “but now it is really up to Putin to accept this offer of negotiations and agree to a ceasefire. The ball is in Russia’s court.” I have just heard President Trump's statement. Very important words. I supported @POTUS idea of a full and unconditional ceasefire — long enough to provide the foundation for diplomacy. And we want it, we are ready to uphold silence on our end. I supported President Trump… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 12, 2025 Meanwhile, Ukraine said its air defence units destroyed all 10 drones that Russia launched overnight on Tuesday. This is the lowest number of drones that Russia has launched in an overnight attack in several weeks. The Ukrainian military’s general staff said as of 10pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, there had been 133 clashes with Russian forces along the front line since midnight, when the ceasefire proposed by European powers was to have come into effect. Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, was quoted by Zelenskyy as saying the heaviest fighting still gripped the Donetsk region, the focus of the eastern front, and Russia’s western Kursk region, nine months after Kyiv’s forces staged a cross-border incursion. Meanwhile, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking Belgorod, with Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov saying on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces used 65 drones and more than 100 rounds of ammunition to attack the region in the past day. Follow Al Jazeera English:...