Sudan miltary leader brushes off sanction threats from West

Sudan’s military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has made comments in which he dismissed Western threats of sanctions tied to protests in the country and discussed meetings between Sudanese and Israeli officials he said were for security cooperation, not politics. In his first interview on state television since the coup, Burhan said on Saturday that Washington was receiving inaccurate information.

He also lauded ties with Israel, saying intelligence sharing between the two former adversaries helped arrest suspected fighters in his country. Protesters have been on the streets for months since Burhan led a military coup in October last year that ended a civilian-military partnership that was meant to lead to democratic elections, a move that was also widely condemned by the international community.

US officials have said they are looking into options to respond to the killing of at least 79 protesters, according to a toll by medics, and to moves to impede civilianled government. “Sanctions and the threat of them are not useful,” Burhan said in the interview, adding that he took personal responsibility for investigations of protester deaths and that five or six were ongoing. —Agencies