Sudanese parliament mulls bill on U.S congress’s “hostile” stance

July 5, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – North Sudan’s parliament has extended its deliberations on a proposed bill against the “hostile” activities of the U.S congress towards the country, local media reported on Tuesday.

Sudan’s national parliament on Tuesday instructed its foreign relations committee to complete information on a draft bill to condemn the “hostile” stance towards Sudan, reported the country’s official news agency.

The draft bill received criticism by the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) whose parliamentary bloc’s leader Isma’il Hassan suggested that the bill aims to find a scapegoat.

Hassan said that the government must allow freedom domestically and renounce double-standard policy before asking the U.S to do so.

“The issue does not lie in New York or Washington, it lies here, internally,” he said, according to the privately owned Sudanese daily newspaper Al-Ahdath.

Long-tense relations between Khartoum and Washington saw some improvement following the peaceful conduct in January of South Sudan’s referendum on independence whose outcome paved the way for the declaration of the south independence due on 9 July.

Subsequently, the U.S. Administration initiated a process to remove Sudan’s name from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

However, north Sudan army’s seizure in May of the hotly-contested region of Abyei dented the progress of normalization.

The Khartoum government has frequently castigated lobby groups in the U.S for pressuring both legislators and the administration to adopt a hard line towards Sudan.

Sudan continues to chafe under comprehensive U.S economic, trade and financial sanctions imposed since October 1997 in connection to alleged support of terror networks and human rights abuses.

Further sanctions, particularly on weapons, have been imposed since 2003’s outbreak of violence in the western Darfur region.

(ST)