Sudan to Normalize Relations With Israel

On Friday, President Trump announced that Sudan and Israel have agreed to normalize relations. Sudan will be the third Arab country to open up diplomatic ties under deals brokered by the Trump administration, following the UAE and Bahrain.

President Trump said he believes another five Arab nations will move to normalize with Israel, mentioning only Saudi Arabia by name. “We expect Saudi Arabia will be one of those countries,” he said.

The announcement came after Sudan agreed to pay $335 million to victims of the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The payment is being made in exchange for the US to remove Khartoum from the list of state sponsors of terror.

Over the past year, Sudan has been negotiating with the US to be removed from the list since the designation blacklists the African country from international financial institutions. The Trump administration is believed to have recently added normalizing with Israel to the preconditions needed to remove Khartoum from the terror list.

Also on Friday, Israel said it would not oppose any US weapons sales to the UAE, referencing a potential sale of F-35 fighter jets rumored to be part of Abu Dhabi’s normalization agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the US gave him enough assurances that Washington will provide the Jewish state with enough arms to maintain its military superiority in the region.