Hamas leaves Sudan under U.S. pressure-Palestinians

KHARTOUM, Nov 14 (Reuters) – The representative of the Islamist Palestinian militant group Hamas has left Sudan, a move Palestinian sources said on Friday was because of U.S. pressure on Khartoum for hosting the organisation.

Washington lists Hamas as a ”terrorist” group and Sudan as a ”state sponsor of terrorism,” though it said it would look at removing Africa’s largest country from the list if it signed a peace deal to end a two-decade-civil war in the south.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last month visited peace talks in Kenya between southern rebels and the government. He said Sudan had yet to meet U.S. demands it shut the Khartoum offices of Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But Palestinian sources in Khartoum told Reuters there was no Hamas office there only a representative, Jamal Eisa, who left the country last week because of U.S. pressure.

”The organisation felt their presence here was no longer tenable because of the focus on Sudan at the moment,” he said referring to Powell’s comments.

The U.S. embassy in Khartoum said on Monday it was suspending operations because of a threat to U.S. interests there. But Sudan’s minister of justice, Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin, on Friday dismissed any possible threat.

”The decision was political and has no relations with the internal situation in Sudan,” he said in comments published by the state-owned Al-Anbaa newspaper. ”There are no extremists inside Sudan who could threaten security and safety of Americans and their interests.”