Head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said on Monday that Khartoum was not subjected to blackmail from the United States to normalize its relations with Israel.
On Friday, the Sudanese capital confirmed the normalization of its relations with Israel, and “an end to the state of hostility” between the two countries, based on a tripartite statement issued by Sudan, the United States and Israel, reported by Sudanese state television, which described the agreement as “historic.”
The Sudanese Council of Ministers revealed on Sunday that during the visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the United States insisted on the normalization of relations between Khartoum and Israel to remove the country from its list of states sponsoring terrorism.
Pompeo visited Sudan in August as part of a regional tour. He was the first US Secretary of State to visit the country in 15 years.
“Let me confirm that we didn’t face any kind of blackmail to normalize with Israel. But we all know that normalization with Israel is something that is motivated by the American administration and we have the right to normalize [ties] with Israel like other countries in the region,” Burhan told Sudan’s state television on Monday.
“We have been isolated from the world because of sanctions and because of the [state sponsors of] terrorism list and the Sudanese nation has suffered a lot from this, so we were looking out for our interests,” he added.
Burhan also noted that the decision on normalization was approved by the majority of political parties in the country.
He stressed, however, that the normalization agreement would be submitted to the Transitional Legislative Council after its formation.