Sudan embassy in Washington finally granted banking facilities

KHARTOUM, Nov 2 (AFP) — The Sudanese government said its embassy in Washington was finally able to open a bank account after a months-long dispute between the two countries over the issue.

“Washington notified the Sudanese government that the problem had been resolved,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail [photo] told reporters here, a week after threatening to close the US embassy in Khartoum over the banking snag.

The Sudanese embassy’s account with Riggs Bank was closed after the lender was accused in July of helping former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet hide millions of dollars in assets from international prosecutors while he was under house arrest in Britain.

The bank was also accused of violating anti-money-laundering laws in its dealing with the embassies of Equatorial Guinea and Saudi Arabia.

Since then, Sudan — listed by the United States as a “state sponsor of terrorism — had been unable to find to a new bank.

Several other embassies were thought to have encountered the same problem, but the crisis between Sudan and Washington developed against the backdrop of mounting international pressure on Khartoum over the situation in the Darfur region.