Mossad head Meir Dagan assured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Saudi Arabia would allow Israeli Air Force jets to fly over their kingdom during any future raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
According to the London daily, Dagan held talks with Saudi officials earlier this year on the topic. The Israeli media has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. Saudi officials denied the reports.
"The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia," a diplomatic source was quoted in the Times as saying last week.
While Israel has no formal diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, an Israeli source confirmed that the Mossad has "working relations" with the Saudis.
Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who recently visited the Gulf, said it was "entirely logical" for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.
Bolton, who has talked to a number of Arab leaders, added: "None of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an over-flight if the Israelis didn't trumpet it as a big success."
Arab states would publicly condemn a raid when they spoke at the UN but would be privately relieved to see the threat of an Iranian bomb removed, Bolton said.
Referring to the attack on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 that Israel is rumored to have launched, Bolton added: "To this day, the Israelis haven't admitted the specifics but there's one less nuclear facility in Syria . . ."
Moderate Sunni Arab states are becoming increasingly concerned about the stability of the repressive Shi'ite regime in Teheran and it emerging as a belligerent nuclear power.
"The Saudis are very concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb, even more than the Israelis," a former head of research in Israeli intelligence told the Times.
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