Sudan’s leader: Israel deal ‘incentive’ to end pariah status

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s leader said Monday that the decision to normalize ties with Israel was an incentive for President Donald Trump’s administration to end Sudan’s international pariah status.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the ruling sovereign council, told state television that without the normalization with the Jewish state now, Sudan would have had to wait until deep into next year to be removed from the U.S.’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Trump’s administration has tied the de-listing of Sudan to a deal to normalize ties with the Jewish state. The African country is the third Arab state — after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — to move to normalize relations with Israel. The administration was eager to achieve diplomatic victories in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election Nov. 3.

“If the candidate (Trump) wanted some gains, we also wanted some gains .. We would have waited for August or September,” he said. “We are more winners than any other party.”

Albania repatriating 5 family members of fighters in Syria

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s prime minister said Monday that four children and a woman, all related to Albanian nationals who joined Islamist extremist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq, are being repatriated from a Syrian camp.

Edi Rama told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Beirut, Lebanon, that the return of the five was arranged after 12-month negotiations, and that his government also hoped to secure the repatriation of other Albanian nationals stuck in Syria in similar circumstances.

All five were taken to Beirut Monday, where Rama had dinner with them, and were due to fly back to the Albanian capital of Tirana Tuesday.

“It has been a complicated year’s work,” Rama said. He declined to provide details on the negotiations so as not to endanger efforts to secure the return of other Albanian fighters’ families.

He added that the woman uses a wheelchair as a result of injuries and will require immediate and difficult surgery once back in Albania. All five lived in the Al Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria.