BICOM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally recognised South Sudan at a meeting of Israel’s cabinet yesterday. The new nation was established over the weekend after voting in January to secede from the North. Netanyahu told the cabinet, ‘This is a peace-seeking country and we would be pleased to cooperate with it in order to ensure its development and its prosperity.’

Israel has no relations with the largely Islamic North Sudan. The country has been used as part of a smuggling route to transfer weapons for Hamas into the Gaza Strip, and Israel is believed to have more than once targeted weapons shipments and Hamas operatives with airstrikes inside Sudan. It has been claimed in the past that Israel provided arms to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the main rebel movement that won independence for South Sudan.