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Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has said that keeping his country on a US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism is endangering its path towards democracy, the Financial Times reported.
The designation dates back to 1993, when the country under longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir become an outcast for having hosted Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
In an interview published Sunday, Hamdok said sanctions linked to the designation were “crippling our economy”, adding that Sudan’s removal from the list would be a “game changer”.
“We are isolated from the world,” Hamdok said, noting that Sudan had expelled bin Laden over two decades ago, and that Bashir’s regime was overthrown last year.
“Sudanese people have never been terrorists. This was the deeds of the former regime,” he told the Financial Times.
Concerning speculation that Sudan could normalise ties with Israel if its terror listing were removed, Hamdok said: “We would like to see these two tracks addressed separately.”
Last month, Israel signed US-brokered deals to normalise ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and the administration of US President Donald Trump wants Sudan to follow suit.
