President of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan started on Sunday a two-day official visit to the United Arab Emirates.
According to a Sovereign Council statement, Burhan was accompanied by a high-level ministerial delegation and a number of experts and specialists in negotiation.
He discussed with the UAE leadership the situation in his country and a number of regional issues, the statement added.
The ministerial delegation, led by Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdelbari, is scheduled to hold direct talks with US officials present in the UAE.
The issues to be addressed are removing Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, supporting the transitional period, writing off American debts on Sudan, and urging friendly countries to take serious steps in the debt relief process.
The visit comes few days after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued statements hinting Sudan’s delisting in late October.
On August 25, Pompeo affirmed during his visit to Khartoum the US continued support for the civilian-led transitional government, pointing out that “Sudan’s removal from the list remains a critical bilateral priority for both countries.”
He also raised the issue of Sudan establishing ties with Israel, yet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok told him he had no mandate to do so.
Parties within the ruling Forces of the Declaration for Freedom and Change oppose any steps to normalize relations with Israel.
The transitional government has earlier pledged to pay $300 million for families of the victims of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, meeting a key condition for removing the country from Washington's terrorism blacklist.
In October 2019, Burhan and Hamdok discussed in a joint visit to the UAE the bilateral relations, especially economic, investment and trade, opportunities for their development in various fields, as well as developments in the political situation in Sudan.
Burhan’s current visit to the UAE is the third. He first visited it in May 2019 as President of Sudan’s transitional military council.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE agreed in April 2019 to send three billion dollars worth of aid, throwing a lifeline to the country’s new military leaders after protests led to the ousting of president Omar al-Bashir.
The two Gulf Arab countries deposited $500 million with the Sudanese central bank and sent the rest in the form of food, medicine, and petroleum products.
