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Bloomberg
A rebel group that’s waged a six-year war against Sudan’s government will ask the U.S. to postpone a sanctions review on the African country beyond a July deadline as it accuses President Umar al-Bashir’s forces of breaching a cease-fire and blocking aid to civilians. The Obama administration in January ordered the reversal of some of the economic sanctions the U.S. imposed on Sudan in 1997, four years after it was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. The leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, which has fought in the country’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile provinces since 2011, said the U.S. should link lifting sanctions with democratization and allowing full humanitarian access.
Al-Bashir “shouldn’t be given a free lunch,†Yassir Arman, the SPLM-N’s secretary-general, said by phone from a location in Sudan he wouldn’t disclose. He accused Sudan’s government of a recent “continued military and air offensive†in part of its western Darfur region and “a limited offensive†in Kordofan’s Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. Calls to Sudanese Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman seeking comment on the allegations didn’t connect. Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour over the weekend said that Darfur rebel groups are trying to draw his government into military confrontations and invalidate the cease-fire, Sudanese broadcaster Ashorooq reported on its website.
Arman described the cease-fire in the conflict areas as a “unilateral gesture†al-Bashir wants to use to have the sanctions lifted. The rebel leader said the SPLM-N will meet U.S. officials on Monday to discuss a US proposal for humanitarian access to South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and he will raise the issue of sanctions. The SPLM-N won’t accept the US relief proposal without “certain improvements†that make it “sustainable,†he said.
“We want to make sure Bashir won’t control any humanitarian operations and that such operations will be linked to international standards and to international law,†Arman said.