Sudanese PM rattled by meeting of country’s leader with Netanyahu

CAIRO — Sudan’s prime minister appears rattled by the meeting this week between the head of his country’s transitional council and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insisting that all decisions related to Sudan’s foreign affairs “should be made” exclusively by his Cabinet.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abddalla Hamdok’s remarks today are the latest in a flurry of comments from government officials, Sudanese political parties and public figures who were stunned by the meeting, which was kept secret until Netanyahu announced during a visit to Uganda that he had met there with Sudanese Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and that Israel and Sudan were working towards normalizing relations. For Israel, it was a major diplomatic breakthrough with a Muslim-majority African state.

Hamdok’s government said it wasn’t consulted and only learned of the meeting through the media. Burhan is Sudan’s de facto leader and heads its military-civilian transitional council established following autocrat Omar al-Bashir’s ouster in a popular uprising that ended his 30-year rule last April.

“The road to meaningful change in Sudan is riddled with challenges and obstacles,” Hamdok tweets. “However, we must understand that abiding to legal institutional roles and responsibilities is key to building a truly democratic state.”

“The transitional government as a whole must ensure accountability, responsibility and transparency in all decisions made,” he adds.

Hamdok however welcomes Burhan’s statement yesterday that Sudan still backs the Palestinian people’s aspirations to have their independent state.

— AP