US may back end to Sudan sanctions - Financial Times, June 29
"14 of the 15 members of the Security Council ready to lift the sanctions well before November"
"Some improvement in the dialogue between Washington and Khartoum is under way"
The US has told members of the United Nations Security Council that it is ready to consider support for the lifting of UN sanctions against Sudan - but not until after the US presidential elections in November, senior diplomats at the UN said yesterday.
The discussions have led other members of the Security Council to conclude that the US will not veto a move to end sanctions against Khartoum as long as it comes up for discussion in mid-November, after the presidential election is over.
The sanctions, which include a ban on flights from Sudan and restrictions on the movement of members of the Sudanese government and armed forces, were imposed in 1996. Three UN Security Council resolutions called on Sudan to stop supporting terrorism and to give up three suspects it was harbouring in an assassination attempt against Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian president, in Ethiopia in 1995.
Diplomats said 14 of the 15 members of the Security Council appeared ready to lift the sanctions well before November, but the US was not ready to vote on the issue before the US presidential elections in November.
The group also decided a postponement would give the Council a better bargaining position with Sudan over its continuing civil war.
Jean-David Levitte, France's ambassador to the UN and this month's president of the Security Council, said yesterday that in bilateral discussions between the US and Sudanese missions at the UN, the two countries had agreed to postpone discussions of a draft resolution on lifting the sanctions until mid-November.
Most Security Council members believe Sudan has made sufficient progress towards dealing with terrorism and in improving relations with neighbours.
A US official said yesterday some improvement in the dialogue between Washington and Khartoum was under way. A team of terrorism and security experts was currently in Khartoum and Harry Johnson, special US envoy, had made his second visit to Khartoum earlier this month.
However, the official US position is that the US will not support the lifting of sanctions until the Sudanese government has taken "concrete verifiable steps to end its support for terrorist groups". "Sudan has not turned over or accounted for the suspects in the attack on President Mubarak, and we have not yet seen evidence that it has taken convincing steps to end its support for terrorist groups," Phil Reeker, State Department spokesman, said this week.
The appetite of the Clinton administration and of Congress for the widespread imposition of sanctions on other countries appears to be waning. As a sign that it might want to pursue a policy of greater engagement with some of these countries, the US this month officially abandoned its use of the term "rogue states" for a handful of countries, including Sudan, in favour of the phrase "states of concern". |
