„I have the pleasure of welcoming you, Foreign Secretary Cleverly, because there are excellent relations between our countries and I am sure that your visit will only strengthen them,” Netanyahu stated.
“We both have smart countries with a similar set of values,” the Israeli prime minister said at the start of their meeting. “We are two strong and vigorous democracies that cooperate and that is a wonderful thing.”
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Tuesday that if the United States were to agree to a defense pact with Riyadh as part of a potential normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, it would reassure Gulf nations that they are protected from Iranian aggression, rendering their nuclear ambitions “unnecessary.”
(22 February 2023)
Sudan signed the Abraham Accords in January 2021, a step viewed as a condition for US munificence in removing Sudan’s name from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and paving a loans-ridden route for Sudan’s reintegration into the global financial system after decades of exclusion.
Sudan had reached out to Israel a year earlier, when General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – who came to power after countrywide popular demonstrations preceded a 2019 palace coup against former leader Omar al-Bashir – held a meeting in Uganda’s Entebbe with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February 2020.
Mr Cohen, a senior member of returning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s new government, spoke to Mr Lavrov a day after he gave his first speech as Foreign Minister.
Mr Cohen said Israeli aid to Ukraine would continue, during his address on Monday, adding that there would be “less talk” on the Russia-Ukraine issue.
Israel, Cohen said, will take a more pro-Russian position on the Ukraine war. Israel will not condemn Russia, he added, noting that he will speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday. The Foreign Ministry, he ceremoniously promised, will “prepare a detailed presentation to the security cabinet on the issue.”
That’s quite the statement from a man with less than 24 hours’ foreign policy experience, slated to serve as foreign minister for just a year (later returning for a further year in rotation).