US lifts Sudan’s listing as ‘sponsor of terror’

Bloomberg

The US rescinded Sudan’s almost three-decade designation as a state sponsor of terror, paving the way for the North African country to rejoin the global community and boost its ravaged economy.
“The congressional notification period of 45 days has lapsed and the secretary of state has signed a notification stating rescission of Sudan’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation is effective as of Monday,” the US Embassy in Khartoum said.
The move was expected after President Donald Trump announced in October that Sudan had agreed to make a long-sought payment to US terror victims and their families. Discussions also brought in Sudan’s fledgling relations with Israel, a country Khartoum had never previously recognised and with which it agreed a peace deal just days later.
Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdok on Twitter hailed the country’s freedom from “the international and global blockade forced upon us by the acts of the ousted regime.” He shared a video outlining some of the potential economic benefits. It’s another step towards overturning the legacy of dictator Omar al-Bashir, who made the country an international pariah for much of his 30-year rule and was ousted by the army amid mass protests in April 2019. The US named Sudan a terror sponsor in 1993, citing its links with international extremist organisations, and four years later enacted sweeping sanctions that lasted until 2017.
Sudan’s transitional government had mounted a campaign for the listing to be dropped. It said the rescission was crucial to rebuilding an economy battered by mismanagement,
corruption and the loss of most of its oil reserves on South Sudan’s secession in 2011.