Mike Pompeo concludes his historic tour of the Middle East in the Emirates

The tour of the Middle East by Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, ends on Emirati territory and takes place weeks after the announcement of the historic cooperation agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Is a way of scanning the landscape in other Arab countries to establish full diplomatic relations with the Hebrew state.

Shortly after arriving at the airport, Mike Pompeo expressed his enthusiasm for visiting the UAE. He wrote a tweet on his Twitter account stating that the UAE-Israel agreement is the most important step towards peace in the Middle East in over 25 years. He also expressed the hope to use the momentum of the new agreement to achieve regional peace

The secretary of state, who made the first stop in Jerusalem, visited Sudan and Bahrain, two of the main countries with prospects of joining the UAE for relations with Tel Aviv. This tour of Pompeo will end in Abu Dhabi.

Pompeo's visit to Khartoum is the first by a US Secretary of State in 15 years. It lasted only a few hours and was a fruitless trip as Washington's aim on this trip was to take a new ally in the Middle East for Israel, but Khartoum showed its refusal to normalise relations with the Jewish country.

The spokesman for the Sudanese government, Faisal Saleh, stated that "the transitional government is not authorised (...) to decide on normalisation with Israel, and this matter will be decided once the institutions of the transitional power are completed", Efe reported.

The press conference scheduled between Pompeo and the Sudanese prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, was suspended after it was learned that neither the American nor Khartoum achieved their goal at the meeting: for Khartoum to establish relations with Israel; nor Hamdok his: for Washington to remove Sudan from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

The country has been on this list since the 1990s when Osama Bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, was a guest of former president Omar al-Bashir's government.

Since al-Bashir was overthrown, relations with Washington have improved considerably. But Hamdok reminded Pompeo, according to Efe, that the transition phase in which Sudan finds itself "is led by a broad coalition with a specific agenda to complete the transition process, achieve peace and stability in the country, until free elections are held". But what is not among the country's priorities is to start establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel. 

The United States committed itself to Sudan that, if it compensated the victims and co-operated in the fight against terrorism, it would remove the country from the blacklist. But Washington has not yet taken the step and Khartoum wants Congress to grant immunity from future lawsuits stemming from past terrorist attacks.

The US State Department issued a statement saying that Pompeo and Hamdok discussed "positive developments in Sudan-Israeli relations".

From Khartoum, Pompeo flew to Bahrain, and other objectives were included such as Saudi Arabia, with the same aim: to normalise relations between Israel and the Arab countries.