<p>US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday left Israel for Sudan, the next stop on his regional tour, on the first official direct flight from Tel Aviv to Khartoum.</p>.<p>Video released by the US embassy in Jerusalem showed an official greeting Pompeo as he walked onto the plane, saying "You are now on a historic flight," and the top US diplomat nodding in agreement.</p>.<p>Israel and Sudan do not have diplomatic relations and, barring a last-minute route change, it would be the first such non-stop flight, US officials said.</p>.<p>Israel has regular commercial flights to Egypt, Sudan's northern neighbour, with which it signed a peace agreement in 1979.</p>.<p>Pompeo's trip, also taking in Bahrain and the UAE, comes in the wake of the August 13 announcement of a US-brokered normalisation of relations between the Emirates and the Jewish state.</p>.<p>Speaking in Jerusalem on Monday, both Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that they were hopeful that other Arab states would follow suit.</p>.<p>The deal with the UAE is not strictly-speaking a peace deal as the two states have never been at war.</p>.<p>Israel is also technically at war with Sudan, which for years had supported hardline Islamist forces but which is turning its back on the era of strongman Omar al-Bashir who was ousted last year.</p>
<p>US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday left Israel for Sudan, the next stop on his regional tour, on the first official direct flight from Tel Aviv to Khartoum.</p>.<p>Video released by the US embassy in Jerusalem showed an official greeting Pompeo as he walked onto the plane, saying "You are now on a historic flight," and the top US diplomat nodding in agreement.</p>.<p>Israel and Sudan do not have diplomatic relations and, barring a last-minute route change, it would be the first such non-stop flight, US officials said.</p>.<p>Israel has regular commercial flights to Egypt, Sudan's northern neighbour, with which it signed a peace agreement in 1979.</p>.<p>Pompeo's trip, also taking in Bahrain and the UAE, comes in the wake of the August 13 announcement of a US-brokered normalisation of relations between the Emirates and the Jewish state.</p>.<p>Speaking in Jerusalem on Monday, both Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that they were hopeful that other Arab states would follow suit.</p>.<p>The deal with the UAE is not strictly-speaking a peace deal as the two states have never been at war.</p>.<p>Israel is also technically at war with Sudan, which for years had supported hardline Islamist forces but which is turning its back on the era of strongman Omar al-Bashir who was ousted last year.</p>