Sudan officially repeals law on boycotting Israel notwithstanding dissent
The Sudanese government on Monday officially approved a bill cancelling the law on boycotting Israel.
The abolished law, which was enacted in 1958, forbids dealing and trading with Israel, with a penalty of up to 10-year imprisonment for violators.
“Today a draft bill abolishing the law on boycotting Israel was approved in a joint meeting for the Sovereign Council and the Council of Ministers,” said Justice Minister Nasr-Eddin Abdul-Bari on his Twitter account.
Earlier in the day, Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan chaired a joint meeting for the council and the cabinet at the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum.
Reminiscing the estranged relationship between the duo, in the last quarter of 2020 the Islamic governmental authority in Sudan announced its opposition to Sudan’s normalization with Israel in all fields.
This Fatwa, a legal opinion based on the Islamic law, was announced by Islamic Fiqh Complex on its Facebook page as Washington has been exercising pressures on Khartoum to join the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain in achieving normalization with Israel.
But since the ouster of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, rapprochement between Khartoum and Washington has speeded up despite the outstanding issues.
On Sept. 20, U.S. and Sudanese officials met in the UAE over a possible normalization agreement between Israel and Sudan.
Sudan premised acceptance on economic assistance from Washington and removing it from the list of states sponsoring terrorism.
On Oct. 23, 2020, Sudan and Israel announced end of mutual enmity and agreed to establish diplomatic and trade relations.
It would be recalled that in 1997 the United States started imposing economic sanctions on Sudan and had listed it as one of the countries sponsoring terrorism since 1993.
In 2017, Washington decided to lift its economic sanctions on Sudan but kept it on the terror sponsors list before the eventual delisting.