As the US Embassy in Khartoum officially announced the removal of Sudan from the list of states sponsoring terrorism, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said that the northeast African country’s removal will “help tackle debts and improves the investment environment”.
“This is a historic day. Today we return to the international community. This decision helps to implement programs of the transitional period,” Xinhua news agency quoted Hamdok as saying at a press conference her on Monday.
“The Congressional notification period of 45 days has lapsed and the Secretary of State (Mike Pompeo) has signed a notification stating rescission of Sudan’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation is effective as of today (December 14), to be published in the Federal Register,” the Embassy said in a Facebook post.
In October, US President Donald Trump announced his intention of removing Sudan from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list once the African country deposits a $335 million settlement amount for victims of the 1998 twin bombings at the two American Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
Sudan had been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1993. The other three nations on the list are Iran, North Korea and Syria.
Due to the designation, Sudan faced a series of restrictions including a ban on defence exports and sales and restrictions on US foreign assistance.
The August 7, 1998, simultaneous truck bomb explosions that took place at the American Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killed at least 224 people.
The attacks, which were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought the Al Qaeda to the attention of the international community for the first time and led to the FBI designating Osama bin Laden on its list of 10 most-wanted fugitives.
Sudan, which was then under the leadership of the now-ousted Omar al-Bashir, sheltered bin Laden and was found to have assisted the Al Qaeda operatives.
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