Erdan: Israel, Sudan to begin cooperating on water, agriculture, COVID-19

Sudan is the third Arab country to agree to normalize ties with Israel under the rubric of the Trump Administration’s Abraham Accords.

Israel and Sudan will begin to cooperate on ways to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as with regard to water and agriculture, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said on Wednesday after meeting with his Sudanese counterpart in New York.

“First historic meeting with Sudan’s UN Mission and Ambassador Omer Siddig! To translate peace between our nations into action, we will begin cooperating in agriculture, water, and our common fight against coronavirus,” Erdan wrote in a twitter post after the meeting.

“I feel honored to represent Israel during this period,” he said.

The meeting comes in advance of an anticipated visit by an Israeli delegation to Sudan on Sunday. News of the pending trip was reported by Reuters, which said that neither Israel or Sudan had confirmed that such a trip was scheduled to take place.

Sudan is the third Arab country to agree to normalize ties with Israel under the rubric of the Trump Administration’s Abraham Accords. As part of those accords Israel has already signed normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Israel has ratified its treaty with the UAE and is in the process of ratifying the treaty with Bahrain, which the Knesset approved only on Tuesday.

But the deal with Sudan, reached only on October 23 has yet to be formalized.

Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken of the possibility of additional normalization deals, but the Trump administration is due to be replaced by the Biden administration on January 20.

So there is little time to initiate additional deals.

There has been some speculation that Lebanon could be on the list of countries to normalize ties with Israel.

The two countries resumed US-mediated talks on Wednesday on a dispute about their Mediterranean Sea border that has held up hydrocarbon exploration in the potentially gas-rich area, the Israeli energy minister and Lebanon’s state news agency said.

The longtime foes held three rounds of talks last month hosted by the United Nations at a peacekeeper base in southern Lebanon which the world body and the United States have described as “productive.”

But sources had said that gaps between the sides remain large after they each presented contrasting maps outlining proposed borders, that actually increased the size of the disputed area.

The next round of talks will be held in December, a joint statement from the United States and the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon said, as did Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz in a separate communique. They did not provide further details about Wednesday’s discussions.

Israel already pumps gas from huge offshore fields but Lebanon, which has yet to find commercial gas reserves in its own waters, is desperate for cash from foreign donors as it faces the worst economic crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war.

The talks are limited to the maritime issues and are not expected to deal with normalization, but the fact that such negotiations exists has opened the door to that possibility.