US proposes lifting Sudan sanctions in return for $330 million compensation to Al-Qaeda victims

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said he discussed the possibility of the United States lifting sanctions on Khartoum with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday.

Sudan has long urged Washington to remove it from the state sponsors of terror list as a way of encouraging investment and improving its battered and debt-laden economy.

Khartoum has been on the list since 1993 when it hosted Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, denying it the ability to seek aid from multilateral institutions.

US cooperation is crucial in allowing Sudan to write off $60 billion in past debts.

"We had a direct & transparent conversation regarding delisting Sudan," Hamdok tweeted after the meeting.

Pompeo, meanwhile, said: "The democratic transition under way is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the people of Sudan."

A US proposal to lift the sanctions in return for $330 million in compensation for the victims of an Al-Qaeda double bombing of embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 has not gone down well with political figures and activists in Sudan.

US courts found Sudan guilty of aiding slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s.

Activists argue that Sudan, which has been under a new government since overthrowing longtime leader Omar al-Bashir earlier this year, should not now have to pay for the crimes of the previous regime.

"We opposed the regime and overthrew it," activist Mohamed Babiker was quoted by The Guardian as saying. "Now we have to pay for what it did wrong.”


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