Israel has not provided any official response to Monday’s military coup in Sudan, with officials following developments in the country that signed a deal to normalize relations a year earlier.
Israeli officials have recently been working to forge stronger ties with Sudan, which have taken a back seat to Israel’s burgeoning relationships with other countries with which it normalized relations over the past year.
“The internal situation in Sudan challenged its ability to advance ties with Israel as the other countries did,” a diplomatic source recently said. The past few weeks have seen repeated contacts between Sudanese officials and their Israeli counterparts.
>> Sudan and Israel: Moving towards normalization, then a coup
In January, an Israeli cabinet minister led an official delegation to Sudan for the first time to discuss moving forward on a U.S.-brokered deal in October to normalize relations.
Sudan joined the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco last year in agreeing to move toward normal relations with Israel. This caused division in the country. The new U.S. administration of President Joe Biden has said it wants to build on those deals.
Sudan’s top general dissolved the government on Monday and announced that the military will run the country after his forces arrested the acting prime minister and other officials. Thousands of Sudanese protested in the streets against the coup.
Sudan coup: Army dissolves government, declares state of emergency
Sudan and Israel: Moving towards normalization, then a coup
The military takeover threatens to derail Sudan’s long, rocky attempt to transition to democracy two years after protesters forced the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
The move came just before the military was supposed to hand leadership of the country’s joint military-civilian administration to civilians next month. After the early morning arrests of government officials, thousands flooded the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman to protest. Footage shared online appeared to show protesters blocking streets and setting fire to tires as security forces used tear gas to disperse them.
In the afternoon, the head of the military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, went on national TV and announced that he was dissolving the government and the Sovereign Council, a joint military and civilian body created to run the country since al-Bashir’s ouster.
He said quarrels among political factions prompted the military to intervene.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, speaks during an army exercise on the outskirts of Khartoum, 2019.ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP
Burhan declared a state of emergency and said the military will appoint a technocratic government to lead the country to elections, set for July 2023. But he made clear the military will remain in charge, saying, “The Armed Forces will continue completing the democratic transition until the handover of the country’s leadership to a civilian, elected government.”
The Arab League released a statement of “deep concern” about the apparent military coup in Sudan. The Secretary-General of the 22-member bloc, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, urged all parties on Monday to “fully abide” by a constitutional declaration signed in August 2019.
The Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation expressed concern over the apparent coup. In a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, the organization said Monday that it urged Sudanese leaders to “abide by the constitutional document and what has been agreed upon during the transition period.”
U.S. Special Envoy Jeffrey Feltman said the United States was deeply alarmed by the developments. On the official Twitter of the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, Feltman warned the takeover would contravene Sudan’s Constitutional Declaration and puts at risk U.S. assistance to the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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