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US envoy: Washington must relax Sudan sanctions

Global Arab Network - - Adam Turner

Friday, 31 July 2009 10:28

Scott Gration, the US special envoy for Sudan and retired US air force general, told a senate hearing on Thursday that the Sudan sanctions were actually hindering efforts to bring peace to Sudan.

Gration has said Washington must "unwind" some of the sanctions imposed on the African nation, saying that there was no reason to continue to list Khartoum as a "state sponsor of terrorism".

"There is no evidence in our intelligence community that supports being on the state sponsors of terrorism list," Gration said. "It's a political decision."

The Sudanese government in Khartoum welcomed Gration's call for an end to the "unjustifiable American sanctions".

"Sudan has appreciated the positive signals," Abdul-Mahmoud Abdul-Halim, Sudan's ambassador to the UN, was quoted as saying by the state SUNA news agency.

He called for a new relationship between Khartoum and Washington "based on respect of Sudan's choices" and in "the interest of the two nations".

Sudan was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993, but in its latest report, the US state department described Sudan as "a co-operative partner in global counterterrorism efforts".

The administration of Barack Obama, the US president, has given Gration the task of helping to maintain a Sudanese peace deal signed in 2005, which ended two decades of civil war in the African nation.

Under the agreement a coalition government was established in Khartoum which included former rebels from the south of the country.

In 18 months the south will vote in a referendum on whether to remain in a united Sudan or split and form a separate nation.

Gration said that the sanctions needed to be eased "so that we can do the very things that we need to do to ensure a peaceful transition and a state that's viable in the [south] should they choose to do that".

He noted that the restrictions prevented heavy equipment being brought into the country to build roads and railways that are vital to improve the country's infrastructure.

A continuing conflict in western Darfur was cited as the reason for the greater restrictions, but Gration told the senate committee that the situation in the region was "getting significantly better".

"There's significant difference between what happened in 2004 and 2003, which we characterised as a genocide, and what is happening today," he said.

However, at a meeting to extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur, Security Council members expressed concerns about the ongoing violence and the pace of peace talks.

"There is still serious concern ... about the security situation on the ground and the rather slow progress in the political track," John Sawers, Britain's ambassador to the UN, said. (AFP, Aljazeera, SUNA)

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