Removal from US list not linked to Israel ties: Sudan

KHARTOUM

Sudan on Tuesday denied any link between the country’s removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalization with Israel.

“I can confirm that there is no link between the issue of normalization with Israel and the lifting of Sudan from the terror list,” Foreign Minister Omer Qamar Aldin told a press conference in Khartoum.

He said Sudan’s removal from the US blacklist was be “the first step for Sudan’s return to the international community”.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump announced the removal of Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism after Khartoum agreed to pay $335 million as a settlement to the victims of 1998 twin bombings of the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

For his part, the governor of Sudan’s Central Bank, Mohamed Alfatih Zain Alabdin, confirmed that Sudan has transferred $335 million to the families of the 1998 bombings.

The US placed Sudan on the terror list in 1993 on accusations of supporting terror groups. In 1997, Washington imposed economic sanctions on Khartoum and tightened them a year later after the embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania.

Sudanese political forces announced categorical rejection of normalization with Israel amid talks of a possible Sudanese deal after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed US-sponsored deals in Washington in last month.

The two Gulf states ignored Arab popular rejection of the deal, which Palestinians say ignore their rights and do not serve the Palestinian cause.