Credit:  Photo / By Gary Raynaldo / ©Diplomatic Times / Abdalla Hamdok, Prime Minister of Sudan

By Gary Raynaldo             DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok  is feeling betrayed by an apparent secretly arranged meeting  between the head of his country’s transitional council and  Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in Uganda this week.   General  Abdel-Fattah  Burhan, who heads Sudan’s  military-civilian transitional council established following autocrat Omar al-Bashir’s ouster in a popular uprising that ended his 30-year rule last April, met with PM Netenyahu.   Hamdok’s government said it wasn’t consulted and only learned of the meeting through the media.  Hamdok says his cabinet, not transitional council chief, should handle all issues relating to foreign affairs.

The constitutional declaration remains the legal framework for this transition and we must abide by what it outlines and in this setting, it states that decisions related to Sudan's foreign affairs must be made by the Council of Ministers.

— Abdalla Hamdok (@SudanPMHamdok) February 5, 2020

“The road to meaningful change in Sudan is riddled with challenges and obstacles. However, we must understand that abiding to legal institutional roles and responsibilities is key to building a truly democratic state.”   

-Sudan Prime  Minister  Hamdok  via twitter

General  Abdel-Fattah  Burhan heads Sudan’s  military-civilian transitional council

PM Netanyahu: "This is a real friendship. This is my fifth visit to Uganda in over—it began many decades ago, and our first meeting, Mr. President, which I'll never forget. pic.twitter.com/sKGVP1vvJG

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) February 3, 2020

H.E. Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan, Lieutenant General Abdel H.E. Fattah al Burhan, met today in Entebbe, Uganda, on the invitation of H.E. President of the Republic of Uganda YoweriKaguta Museveni.   “It was agreed to start cooperation leading to normalization of the relationship between the two countries. Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that Sudan is headed in a new positive direction and he expressed his views to the Secretary of State of the United States of America,” according to a statement from the Israeli Prime Minister’s office.  

“The Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, is eager to help his country modernize by taking it out of isolation and putting it on the world’s map.”

-Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu