President Trump’s Middle East peace deals between Israel and Sudan, including last Friday, are “unprecedented” for the region, State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagas said Saturday.
The president announced the U.S.-brokered deal at the Oval Office on Friday, saying “there will be many more peace deals in the Middle East.”
Ortagas, speaking on Fox & Friends Weekend, said it was important to keep the agreement in context, noting that until two months ago, it had been 26 years since relations between the Arab nation and the Jewish state had normalized.
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“Now, in just two months, we have three,” Ortagas told co-host Pete Hagseth, a “fundamental shift” in the field.
He credits Trump’s foreign policy, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have changed “the way the United States looks to the Middle East.”
“We have rejected the traditional wisdom surrounding both political parties, both sides of the aisle in Washington DC, where we said we would empower the state of Israel and our Arab allies and friends, and through all of this we were told Ortegas said we made that decision. Took that we would do World War III in the Middle East and instead we now have three Arab-Israeli peace agreements.
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He said Arab countries have said for years that they would not negotiate with Israel until they make a deal with the Palestinians for the first time.
“They also look at the state of Israel and say that this is an economic powerhouse, this is an oil-free country, without some natural resources from its neighbors, yet it has a strong economy, is really strong in technology and military The countries have decided that they are better than an open partnership, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, against our enemy. “
When Trump expressed his vision for peace in the Middle East in February, he said he hoped for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which he touched on Friday.
“Palestinians, they want to do something.” I am sure it will happen too, “the president said.
A growing number of Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, formalizing relations with Israel have been criticized by Palestinians seeking a two-state solution. Egypt and Jordan were the only two Arab countries to officially recognize Israel.
Tartags described the latest developments as “sharp changes” for the Middle East and Sudan in particular.
Friday’s deal, which will deepen Sudan’s engagement with the West, follows Trump’s conditional agreement this week to remove the North African country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of the terrorist attack.
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Pompeo said at a ceremony announcing the deal that victims of terrorism would receive compensation 335 million in compensation from Sudan.
The money is for the victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by the al-Qaeda network, while its leader Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan. Trump said on Tuesday that he would remove Sudan from the list once the funds were transferred.
Morgan Phillips of Fox News contributed to this report.
