Sudan
SudaniStock

The Sudanese government is convening to decide on the issue of normalization with Israel, CNN’s Arabic-language news service reported on Thursday.

On Wednesday, intelligence sources said that the United States had given the Sudanese leadership 24 hours to decide on a normalization agreement with Israel.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has pushed in recent weeks for a breakthrough between Israel and Sudan which would end the country’s pariah status in the West and lead to closer relations between Sudan and Israel.

Last month, Sudan's Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, said that normalizing ties with Israel was a "complicated" issue needing wide debate within society.

Israel and Sudan have had no formal ties in the past. In 2016, the country’s then-Foreign Minister hinted that his country could consider normalizing ties with Israel, but the government was then quick to that his comments were “taken out of context”.

In February, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met the head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council, Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, during a visit to Uganda.

While Netanyahu’s office said after the meeting that the two leaders had agreed to cooperate towards normalizing ties, Sudan's cabinet later said that Burhan had made no promise to Netanyahu of "normalizing ties" between the two countries.