Sudan confirms plans to normalize with Israel

KHARTOUM – Sudanese foreign ministry has this afternoon confirmed in an exclusive interview with Sky News Arabia that it has the intention and aspiration to normalize relations with Israel, days after speculations that the country was closer to normalizing ties with the Jewish state.

“There’s no reason for the enmity to continue,” Haidar Badawi Sadiq, the Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman told Sky News Arabia  in Khartoum Tuesday adding “we do not deny the communication between the two countries.”

He also says “both Sudan and Israel will benefit from such an agreement if it is signed, at the end of this year or the beginning of next year,” dovetailing with Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen’s declaration that there could be an agreement between Jerusalem and Khartoum by the end of the year.

Speculation about warming ties between the two countries has been building since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met earlier this year in Uganda with the leader of the Sudanese transitional government, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Burhan.