Sudan agrees to normalize relations with Israel

Sudan agrees to normalize its relations with Israel.

The report indicates that the official and public announcement of the relationship standardization is expected to take place in the coming days.

Sudan would have agreed to fully normalize its relations with Israel, said a first report from Israel Hayom Wednesday evening.

According to Israel Hayom, the only mainstream media outlet to have published the report so far, a political source involved in the diplomatic talks between Israel and Sudan confirmed that the countries would normalize their relations very soon, following an expected phone call between President Donald Trump and the Chairman of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Earlier Wednesday, Regional Cooperation Minister Ofir Akunis and Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen said they believed Israel was on the verge of normalizing its relations with Sudan.

“I have a reasonable basis to believe that the announcement will be made before November 3 – which I understand from my sources,” Akunis told Israeli Army radio.

Akunis said several countries were candidates for normalization of relations with Israel, but did not name them, saying it was customary to let the first official word come from Washington.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the United States has begun the process of removing Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

When asked if the decision was linked to a possible normalization of ties between Sudan and Israel, Pompeo replied: “We also continue to work for every nation to recognize Israel, the legitimate Jewish homeland, and to recognize its fundamental right to exist as a country, and that certainly includes Sudan.

While Pompeo avoided linking Sudan’s removal from the terrorism list to the issue of normalization with Israel, several officials said that normalization was indeed considered a condition for the U.S. to agree to remove Sudan from the list.

Also on Wednesday, a private jet would have flown from Ben Gurion airport to Khartoum for the second time, the first being a medical aid flight from Israel to Sudan.