KAMPALA — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the chief of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met in Uganda on Monday evening and agreed to start normalizing ties between Sudan and Israel.
Immediately after the meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement: “It has been agreed to start a cooperation that will lead to normalizing the ties between the countries.”
Netanyahu’s bureau also stated that “Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that Sudan is moving in a positive direction, and the prime minister has expressed his outlook to the American secretary of state. The head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council is interested in helping his country go through a process of modernization by taking it out of isolation and placing it on the map.”
After the news broke, Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew: “I met in Entebbe with the head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and we agreed to start a cooperation that would lead to normalization of ties between the two countries. History!”
Al-Burhan came to Uganda especially in order to meet with the Israeli premier, who is there for a day-long diplomatic visit. The meeting between the two leaders lasted for two hours.
An Israeli source said that the development is expected to affect the route of flights from Israel and enable aircrafts to fly over the African country.
Israeli sources have hinted that a formal normalization of ties with Sudan will help Israel in its attempts to deport asylum seekers from the African country who are currently seeking refuge in Israel. According to assessments by the UN, some 7,000 Sudanese individuals are currently living in Israel; 4,500 are originally from so-called “crisis areas” in Sudan, where most of the international community does not agree to have them deported.
