WH Hopes Renewed Sanctions will Change Sudan

US Renews Trade Sanctions on Sudan

VoA News: The United States has renewed economic sanctions on Sudan for another year, but says they could be reevaluated after January’s independence referendum in south Sudan.

In a letter to Congress, President Barrack Obama wrote that the conditions that warrant the trade sanctions have not been resolved — Sudanese support for terrorism and its complicity in violence in the Darfur region.

He calls Sudan’s actions and policies an extraordinary threat to U.S. security and foreign policy.

But State Department officials say the sanctions would be reviewed if the Sudanese government takes a cooperative approach to two separate January referendums on the country’s future.

Voters in south Sudan are to decide if the area becomes independent or remains part of Sudan.

The oil-rich Abyei region will also vote on whether it stays in Sudan or joins an independent south Sudan.

But northern and southern leaders are feuding over which residents are eligible to vote in the Abyei referendum. A group of nomadic Arab farmers want the same voting rights as settled farmers who are believed to lean towards joining the south.

U.S. Sudan envoy Scott Gration is in the region as part of a diplomatic team working to clear up any obstacles to successful referendums.

The independence vote for south Sudan is part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended a long-running north-south civil war.