Sudan Hints Yes to Israel, Then It Says No, Then It Says Soon

Ever since the Trump administration announced on August 13 that the UAE would normalize ties with Israel, speculation and rumors have abounded that Sudan would soon follow suit. The spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry, Haider Badawi Saddiq, seemed to confirm this just days after the announcement when he told Sky News Arabia that his government was preparing to sign an agreement with Israel.

Apparently Saddiq was not a very good spokesman, as he was fired the next morning, and the acting foreign minister was quick to deny that normalization was under discussion. Days later, during a visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdok stated that the transitional government has no mandate to normalize ties with Israel.

To make matters more complicated, earlier this year Sudan’s leading general met with Netanyahu in Uganda and pledged to begin working toward normalization. And, more recently, Sudan’s ambassador to the U.S. acknowledged that discussions over normalization were underway. Even then, he gave only vague statements about the prospects, on the one hand noting that “it is difficult to say that the Sudanese people are ready and willing to normalize ties with Israel,” and on the other that Arabs realize “a change of strategy is needed,” vis-à-vis Israel. Then on September 15, Sudan’s chargé d’affaires (but not the ambassador) reportedly attended the signing of the Bahraini-Israeli agreement at the White House. Israeli media, meanwhile, have reported on multiple occasions—the most recent was last Wednesday—that an agreement with Sudan is imminent.