Israel FM: Fully normalized ties with Sudan later this year

By ILAN BEN ZION and SAMY MAGDY
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s foreign minister says the country expects to fully normalize ties with Sudan sometime later this year. Eli Cohen spoke on Thursday, after returning from a lightning diplomatic mission to the Sudanese capital. In Khartoum, he held high-level meetings with Sudan’s ruling general, Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and other military leaders. The announcement could help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deflect attention from a recent burst of violence with Palestinians and widespread public anger over his plans to overhaul the country’s judicial system. For Sudan’s ruling generals, who seized power in a 2021 coup, a breakthrough with Israel could mean injections of financial aid to its struggling economy.