JERUSALEM (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2020) An Israeli delegation has held talks with the Sudanese authorities on the normalization of diplomatic ties during a rare visit to the capital of Khartoum, the state-owned Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, also known as Kan, reported on Wednesday.
The visit occurred "in preparation for the announcement of an agreement to establish relations," the broadcaster reported. The plane arrived in Khartoum on Wednesday after take-off in Tel Aviv.
According to the media, Israeli officials were in Sudan for seven hours. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in turn, refused to give a comment on the matter, and no further details were reported.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump declared that the United States would take Sudan off its State Sponsors of Terrorism list after Khartoum paid $335 million to US terrorism victims and their families. Reports have also circulated on the internet suggesting that Trump's announcement came as part of his administration ongoing policy to normalize Israeli ties with the Arab countries, including Sudan.
During the Tuesday press conference, Sudanese Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din said that the removal of his country from the US list of states supporting terrorism is unrelated to any other issues.
In late September, Khartoum and Washington reportedly reached a deal that the former would sign a peace treaty with Israel in exchange for being excluded from the US blacklist. The African nation was blacklisted in 1993 for sheltering Osama bin Laden for nearly five years at a time when the Al-Qaeda (terrorist group, banned in Russia) leader was involved in attacks on targets in the United States.
Sudan refused to recognize the State of Israel during the 1967 Khartoum Conference and both countries have had little to no diplomatic relations.
