On November 30, Hamdok headed to the US for an official visit, his first visit to Washington … reports Asian Lite News
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has said that his recent visit to the US achieved headway in efforts to normalize ties between the two countries.
“So far we have managed to remove five conditions out of seven to normalize the relations with the US, where we have settled files of delivering humanitarian assistance to the conflict zones, human rights, religious rights, putting peace as a priority, and not to establish relations with North Korea,” Hamdok told the media at the airport here on Sunday upon his return from Washington.
“There are only two files remain, including cooperation in the field of combating terrorism and paying compensation for the two incidents of the destroyer Cole and Washington’s embassies in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi,” Xinhua news agency quoted the premier as saying.
In 2016, a US court ruled that the Sudanese government had to pay around $300 million for the victims of the the attack on American Navy destroyer USS Cole and an additional sum as compensation for the bombing of Washington’s embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.
The US started imposing economic sanctions on Sudan in 1997 and had listing it as one of the countries sponsoring terrorism since 1993.
However in October 2017, the US decided to lift its economic sanctions on Sudan permanently, but kept it on its terror sponsors list.
Responding to a question on whether the rapprochement with Washington would affect the relations with other countries, Hamdok said the Sudan-US rapprochement would not be at the cost of other countries.
On November 30, Hamdok headed to the US for an official visit, his first visit to Washington, where he held talks with the officials focusing on the issue of removing Sudan from the American list of state sponsors of terrorism to end international sanctions imposed on Sudan because of the war in Darfur.
It was announced earlier this month that the two countries would begin a process of exchanging ambassadors after a 23-year gap.
The US had closed its embassy in Khartoum in 1996 and pulled out its ambassador. The embassy was reopened in 2002 and has since been led by a charge d’affaires.