HEAD OF SUDAN’S LARGEST PARTY SLAMS ISRAEL DEAL

Sudan’s former Prime Minister Sadiq al-mahdi on Saturday slammed an announcement by President Donald Trump that Sudan would start normalizing ties with Israel.

Al-mahdi, who is the country’s last democratically elected premier and heads the country’s largest political party, said he withdrew from a government-organized religious conference on Saturday in the capital, Khartoum, in protest against Friday’s announcement.

“This statement contradicts the Sudanese national law ... and contributes to the elimination of the peace project in the Middle East and to preparing for the ignition of a new war,” al-mahdi said in a letter to the conference.

He said the agreement with Israel would jeopardize the authority of Sudan’s transitional government, a fragile coalition of civilian and military leaders.

Sudan is on a thorny path to democracy after a popular uprising last year led the military to overthrow the longtime autocrat, Omar al-bashir. The transitional government has promised elections as soon as 2022.

Al-mahdi, who heads the National Umma Party, was overthrown in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup that brought al-bashir to power. His party is allied with the pro-democracy movement that led the protests against al-bashir.

Al-mahdi accused Trump of being racist against Muslims and Black people, and described Israel as an “apartheid state.”

Sudan has been the third Arab state to move toward normalizing its relations with Israel among a series of Washington-brokered deals in the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections. The Trump administration engineered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in August — the first since Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s and Egypt in the 1970s.

Sudan’s acting Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-din said the ratification of the normalization deal was up to a legislative body, which has yet to be formed.