Vice President of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said on Friday that his country wants to establish relations with Israel “to take advantage of its advanced capabilities.”
The statements were made to settle the existing controversy about Khartoum’s approval of normalisation with Tel Aviv, which would be tied to the United States removing Khartoum from the list of “terrorism-sponsoring states” and with Sudan obtaining financial aid from Washington.
In an interview with Sudania 24 TV channel, Hemedti said he considered that establishing relations with Israel would allow Sudan to benefit from its advanced capabilities, especially technical and agricultural, but claimed that that the move “does not mean Sudan abandoning its support for the Palestinian cause.”
Earlier on Friday, Hemedti announced that he had received a promise from the US envoy to Khartoum, Donald Booth, that Sudan would be removed from the list of “countries sponsoring terrorism” as soon as possible.
On October 6, 2017, the administration of US President Donald Trump lifted economic sanctions and a trade embargo that had been imposed on Sudan since 1997, but did not remove its name from the terrorism list, on which it has been included since 1993, because it hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at the time.
Sudan’s possible establishment of relations with Israel would make it the third Islamic nation to betray Palestine in 2020, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain made a similar step earlier this year.
