PLO: U.S. Puts Pressure on Sudan to Settle Palestine Refugees

WEST BANK (Kayhan Intl.) – The United States is putting pressure on Sudan to accept settling Palestine refugees on its soil, member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, Bassam Al-Salhi, is reported saying by Anadolu.
"Special sources told me that the ongoing normalization talks between Washington, Israel and Sudan include Sudan’s possibility to resettle [Palestine] refugees on its soil as part of the (so-called) deal of the century,” Al-Salhi said, in reference to the U.S. controversial pro-Zionist regime scheme.
He stated that "this is part of the conspiracy against the Palestinian cause,” stressing the issue between the Zionist regime and Sudan goes beyond the normalization of ties.
The PLO official called on Sudan "to reject being dragged into these American-Israeli plans in order to maintain its interests and future.”
Resettling Palestine refugees had been raised dozens of times by the Zionist regime and the U.S. mainly in Egypt and other host countries; however, Al-Salhi said, proposing to resettle them in Sudan is new.
Sudan did not issue an immediate comment on the remarks, but the country’s officials have several times denied reports about the possible normalization of ties with the occupying regime despite several meetings between Sudanese and Zionist regime officials.
Sudan sounded skeptical on Sunday about normalization, with the country’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok saying that normalizing ties with the Zionist regime was a "complicated” issue needing wide debate within society, media reported.
Meanwhile, the leader of the National Umma Party in Sudan, Sadiq Al-Mahdi, said the Zionist regime "is not a normal state.”
"For determined reasons, Israel is not a normal state, but an aberration. Normalization is a soft name for surrender and has no connection with peace,” Al-Mahdi said.
At a seminar entitled "The Dangers of Normalization with the Zionist Enemy”, held in the capital Khartoum, Al-Mahdi said: "The actions that we will take are based on several positions which are: a statement that normalization is a soft name for surrender and has no connection with peace. Now, no Arab country is militarily confronting Israel.”
Earlier this month, the occupying regime of Israel signed U.S.-brokered deals to normalize ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and has been enticing other Arab states to follow suit.
U.S. President Donald Trump wants Sudan to follow in the footsteps of the Arab regime, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Khartoum in August to push a deal.
In another development, Moroccan Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani told the UN General Assembly on Saturday that there can be no peace without giving Palestinians their rights.
"There can be no just or lasting peace unless the Palestinian people can exercise their legitimate right to establish an independent and viable state with al-Quds as its capital,” explained Othmani.
"We categorically reject all of the unilateral measures taken by the Israeli authorities in the occupied Palestinian territories, whether in the West Bank or in al-Quds. Such measures only fuel tension and instability in the region,” he said.