White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will visit Saudi Arabia this weekend for talks expected to touch on a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, one piece of a wider arrangement Washington hopes will lead to the normalization of Israeli-Saudi relations, Reuters reports.

Under Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the United States may negotiate agreements to engage in significant civil nuclear cooperation with other nations. It specifies nine nonproliferation criteria those states must meet to keep them from using the technology to develop nuclear arms or transfer sensitive materials to others. The law stipulates congressional review of such pacts.

As the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia at first glance is not an obvious candidate for a nuclear pact typically aimed at building power plants to generate electricity.

There are two reasons Riyadh may wish to do so. The first is that under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious Vision 2030 reform plan, the kingdom aims to generate substantial renewable energy and reduce emissions. At least some of this is expected to come from nuclear energy.

Critics cite a second potential reason: that Riyadh might wish to develop nuclear expertise in case it someday wished to acquire nuclear weapons despite the safeguards enshrined in any deal with Washington to prevent this.