Sudan has tentatively agreed to allow flights heading to Israel to cross its airspace, Sudanese military spokesman Amer Mohamed al-Hassan said on Wednesday.
An agreement has been worked out “in principle” for the use of Sudan’s airspace by commercial aircraft traveling from South America to Israel, said al-Hassan, according to Al Jazeera, but technical issues still needed to be worked out. Sudan did not agree to overflights by Israeli airline El Al, he added, according to the report.
“Sudan has not announced full normalization (with Israel), but it is exchanging interests,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.
The move comes two days after a meeting in Uganda between Sudan’s transitional head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting spurred opposition in Sudan, with the country’s Cabinet holding two emergency meetings on it, according to the report.
Sudan’s military released a statement on Wednesday describing the meeting as being in “the highest interests of national security and of Sudan.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel and Sudan “are now establishing cooperative relations,” according to the report. “We will overfly Sudan.”
Sudan seeks to improve its international standing and be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
