Johannesburg – Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok’s visit to Washington on Sunday to seek an end of sanctions against his country, due to the country being listed as a sponsor of terrorism, is unlikely to be successful according to a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Centre.
Cameron Hudson, a former chief of staff to the special envoy for Sudan and ex-director for African Affairs on the US’ National Security Council who also served with the CIA, said the administration of President Donald Trump feared that “the military will reassert its authority as soon as sanctions are lifted” in an article he wrote in the Atlantic Council.
“Sudan still has a long way to run before getting rid of US terror list and branch sanctions as its civilian government faces an insurmountable task", wrote Hudson.
The former CIA said Washington wants clarifications about the security and intelligence service after the recent reforms and that this agency is "fully under civilian control".
Hudson further pointed to the presence of "a number of known international terrorists and rebel groups from neighbouring countries most of whom use the large, ungoverned desert expanse from the Red Sea to Libya as an ample hiding ground.”
Lebanese group Hezbollah and Palestinian group Hamas, which are designated as foreign terrorist organisations by the State Department, also maintain a political office in Khartoum.