Saudi Arabia said to have offered US oil output boost to secure Israel deal

Saudi Arabia has told the White House it is willing to boost oil production early next year if crude prices are high, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Saudi and US officials.

The move is aimed at winning goodwill in Congress for a deal in which the kingdom would recognise Israel and, in return, get a defence pact with Washington, WSJ said on Friday.

There was no immediate reaction from Riyadh on the WSJ report.

In September, Saudi Crown Prince and de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman [MBS] told US conservative network Fox News that his country is moving steadily to strike a normalisation deal with Israel.

However, MBS stressed that the Palestinian issue should be solved for the deal to go through.

"For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part," MBS said.

Iran was quick to pick on MBS' comments, with President Ebrahim Raisi saying such a deal would be a "back stab" to the Palestinians.

So far, only half a dozen Arab countries have noramalised ties with Israel.

Egypt and Jordan were the first to recognise Israel by signing separate treaties in 1979 and 1991, respectively.

In 2020, as part of the so-called Abraham Accords, four other countries normalised ties with Israel, including Morocco, the United Arab Emirates [UAE], Bahrain and Sudan.