U.S. special envoy to hold talks with Sudanese officials Tuesday

August 23, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, Donald E. Booth, will hold talks with the Sudanese official on bilateral relations on Tuesday, reported the Sudan News Agency (SUNA).

“The talks will deal with the bilateral relations between Sudan and the United States especially in the economic and commercial fields, and will discuss removing Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism as well as economic sanctions,” SUNA said.

Also the two sides “will exchange views on the situation in South Sudan and the role Sudan they can play to end the ongoing conflict there,” it further said.

Former Sudanese presidential aide and now foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour held a series of talks with the official at the State Department and White House to Washington last February.

Booth’s visit is the first since nearly two years. In November 2013 Khartoum refused to grant a visa for the American diplomat after Washington’s tacit rejection to deliver a visa for the Sudanese president Omer al-Bashir to attend the U.N. General Assembly in September of that year

Washington imposed economic and trade sanctions on Sudan in 1997 in response to its alleged connection to terror networks and human rights abuses. In 2007, it strengthened the embargo, citing abuses in Darfur which it says constitutes genocide.

Sudan has also been on the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism since 1993, even though the two countries have strengthened their counter-terrorism cooperation since the September 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

(ST)