MEMO | September 7, 2020
The United States (US) has conditioned Sudan’s removal from a list of states sponsors of terrorism on its normalisation of diplomatic ties with Israel, Sudanese Foreign Minister, Omer Ismail, announced yesterday.
“US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo combined, during his visit to Khartoum in late August, the two files of the normalisation and the removal of Sudan from the terror list,” Ismail told local Al-Tayyar newspaper, adding that it was “important to fulfil defined conditions for normalisation, even if it is the will of Sudan.”
He stressed that his country’s transitional government did not have the “authority to make such a decision [to normalise ties with Israel],” referring to remarks made by the Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok during Pompeo’s recent visit to Khartoum.
Sudan has been widely tipped to be the next Arab country that would normalise ties with Israel after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to do so as part of a US-brokered agreement in mid-August.