New Hamas representative in Sudan starts work

KHARTOUM, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The new representative for the Palestinian Hamas group began work in the Sudanese capital on Tuesday, despite a U.S. demand that Khartoum close down the offices of militant Palestinian organisations.

Washington lists Hamas as a terrorist group, and Sudan’s willingness to keep a Hamas office in its capital could be an obstacle to lifting U.S. sanctions on the African country.

A Hamas official in Khartoum said the new representative, Omar Abu Obeid, arrived in Khartoum a month ago but could not start work until he presented his credentials to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

“He has presented his papers to the Presidential Palace,” said Hamas press officer Ghalib Hussein.

In November, Hussein had named the new representative as Jumaa Abdel-Fattah, but on Tuesday he said Abdel-Fattah had been acting as a charge d’affaires before Abu Obeid’s arrival.

The United States lists Sudan as one of seven “state sponsors of terrorism”.

Washington has said it would consider removing Sudan from the list after a peace deal is signed to end more than two decades of civil war in the south of the country.

In October, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that closing down the Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices in Khartoum would also be “a nice step for them to take”. Both groups are behind many of the suicide attacks against Israel that have killed hundreds of people.

Sudan has said the current round of peace talks in Kenya should yield an agreement to end the conflict that has killed about two million people, mainly through famine and disease.

The southern civil war broadly pits the Islamist government in Khartoum against the mainly Christian and animist south, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.