Cash helps to cement Sudan deal
Sudan and Israel have agreed to begin normalising relations and set aside decades of hostility, according to a joint statement released by the White House.
US President Donald Trump announced the agreement, which would make Sudan the third Arab country in recent weeks to establish ties with Israel, following the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The announcement yesterday came shortly after the White House said it had notified Congress that Trump intended to remove Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel and Sudan would soon negotiate cooperative agreements in agriculture, trade and aviation.
The deal, which comes less than two weeks before the US presidential election, has been carefully coordinated between the three countries in recent days. They sought to balance the White House’s desire to notch up another diplomatic victory in the run-up to the vote against Sudan’s reported desire not to be seen as capitulating in exchange for favours from Washington.
Sudan was removed from the state terrorism list after it this week deposited US$335 million (NZ$501m) into an account for American victims of terror attacks. These included the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by al Qaeda while its leader, Osama bin Laden, was living in Sudan.
The new recognitions of Israel unify Arab nations around their common enemy, Iran. They also upend the traditional Arab strategy of refusing to normalise relations with Israel before an independent Palestinian state is created. The Palestinians say the recognitions amount to betrayal.
The removal of the terror designation opens the door for Sudan’s fragile transitional government to get international loans and aid needed to revive its battered economy. The nation is on a fragile path to democracy after a popular uprising last year led the military to overthrow longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
Some Islamist politicians in Sudan said they expected to receive renewed public support as a result of the Israel deal.
‘‘As Muslims, we stand with the Palestinians. It is not the transitional government’s role to take this kind of decision,’’ said Mohammed El Hassan, one of the leaders of alBashir’s disbanded National Congress Party.