Nuclear security

Saudi prince: Getting nuclear weapons possible

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, and retired Israeli Army Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, a former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke in Washington Thursday night at a discussion arranged by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Their joint appearance doesn't mean the two countries will be normalizing relations anytime soon, Turki warned. 

"We are both exes," he said, referring to their status as former officials and not current representatives of their governments. Despite that -- and the fact that the Saudi kingdom has never formally acknowledged Israel's existence -- the two nations have been quietly cooperating for years, exchanging intelligence on shared threats and in particular on Iran. 

The most obvious bond the two countries share is their strong security relationship with and dependence on the United States -- and the fact that both have had rocky patches with the Obama administration over the past few years.