Egypt is looking more and more like the third wheel on a date between Sudan and Saudi Arabia. After US President Barack Obama agreed Jan. 13 to lift some financial sanctions imposed on Sudan, that country's president, Omar al-Bashir, immediately visited Saudi Arabia. Sudanese officials said the Saudis played an important role in getting the trade sanctions lifted.
“We have enjoyed Saudi support in this regard, and [Saudi] King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz [Al Saud] pledged to President Bashir to continue his efforts to lift all the sanctions imposed on Sudan and remove the country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism,” Sudanese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Abdul Basit Badawi al-Sanosi told Al-Monitor recently.