"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," he told journalists following his meeting with US special envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman. He said Israel was trying to make Sudan look like a sponsor of terror to keep it from being removed from the US terrorism list.
Karti said the attack was “a flagrant Israeli aggression.”
One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to extremists or the government, he said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.
While Israel never comments on covert operations, its officials have said Sudan is a frequent transit point for illicit weapons headed to Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli defense analyst Alon Ben-David told The Associated Press that if it was an Israeli strike, it would most likely have been against weapons smugglers supplying Hamas.
“Now you can assume that if indeed Israel committed the strike and sent its fighter aircraft 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) away, that was a very high-value target,” he said.
The deputy governor of Port Sudan state, Sirul Khatim Kunna, told the Sudan Media Center that an investigation is underway into the circumstances behind the attack, but it appears that the car was hit by a missile.
The news agency added that the Sudanese government would take the matter to the United Nations Security Council.
There were apparently four cars in the convoy, according to the independent daily Al-Rai Al-Am, but only one was targeted. The attack caused panic in Port Sudan, which is the site of the country’s main oil export terminal, the paper added.
In 2009, a convoy carrying weapons in Sudan was targeted from the air, killing dozens. It was widely believed that Israel carried out the attack on a weapons shipment headed for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Israel never confirmed or denied that.
In another development, Sudan's security forces confiscated copies of an opposition newspaper on Wednesday. Sudan's constitution guarantees press freedom but several journalists have been detained without charge in recent months and papers are often subject to direct censorship.
"They confiscated all the copies of the paper at the printing press after we printed," Faiz Al-Silaik, deputy editor in chief of daily Ajras Al-Huriya, told Reuters.
Al-Silaik, whose newspaper is linked to the south's dominant SPLM party, said the move may have been sparked by its coverage on Wednesday of the Port Sudan attack and long-delayed May elections in South Kordofan state.
Elections in the state, a region containing much of north Sudan's future oil production but where the SPLM has strong support, has provoked security fears for the north's dominant National Congress Party.
