Sudan to normalize relations with Israel

JERUSALEM – Israel is working to make sure that the Middle East country normalizes relations with Sudan before the end of the year, according to a senior Israeli government official who spoke days after the country normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates.

Israeli minister of intelligence, Eli Cohen, who was speaking in the Israeli capital Jerusalem said his country would soon secure the normalization of relations with Sudan which he said, would materialize before the end of 2020.

“There will be, this year, an additional [agreement] with an African country, in my estimation Sudan, that will also sign a peace agreement with the State of Israel,” Israeli news website Times of Israel quoted Cohen as saying.

The Israeli official’s statements came in an interview with Channel 13.

Last February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s ruling body, the Sovereign Council. The meeting set off controversy and sparked pro-Palestine protests in Sudan.

Egypt was the first Arab state to sign a peace deal and normalize ties with Israel in 1979, under then-President Anwar Sadat, who was subsequently assassinated by militants in 1981.

The UAE is only the fourth Arab state after Egypt, Jordan, and Mauritania to establish ties with Israel. The latter however later halted relations in response to the occupation state’s 2014 war on Gaza.