GAZA STRIP (Dispatches)
– Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Sunday welcomed a decision to call off the approval of the Zionist regime’s observer status in the African Union (AU), Anadolu reports.
“The decision by the AU Executive Council to postpone taking a final decision to grant the occupation state observer status is a step in the right direction,” Hamas leader Basem Naim said in a statement.
On Friday, Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said a decision was taken by the AU Executive Council to delay a decision on granting the Zionist regime observer status in the pan-African body until the AU summit in February 2022.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese foreign ministry expressed its rejection of the African Commission’s decision to grant the Zionist regime observer status in the African Union, despite establishing diplomatic ties with the occupying regime last year.
Khartoum’s foreign ministry said its stance was clear regarding the regime’s observer status, protesting that the decision was made without consulting member states.
“This is a rejected approach and contradicts the efforts and principles of the African Union and it undermines the spirit of cooperation, mutual respect and consensus,” a ministry statement said.
The move came as the Hebrew-language Maariv newspaper reported that Zionist officials are worried that Sudan could gradually withdraw from the normalization agreement.
Maariv said Washington has put pressure on Sudanese officials to formally sign the final agreement.
In July, African Union Commission head Moussa Faki Mahamat decided to grant the regime observer status, prompting outrage across the African continent.
Last month, a group of international lawyers, researchers and activists filed a complaint with the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights seeking the revocation of the regime’s AU observer status.
In recent years, the occupying regime exerted efforts to restore ties with African nations which were severed mostly in the aftermath of the regime’s military conflicts with its neighbors and occupation of the Palestinian lands in the 1960s.