Credit: Photo/ By Gary Raynaldo /  ©Diplomatic Times / Abdalla Hamdok, Prime Minister of Sudan

By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The  Republic of Sudan has appointed its first ambassador to the United States in more than 25 years.   Both countries have for two decades years appointed only chargés d’affaires at their embassies in Washington and Khartoum.  Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok visited Washington in December and the two countries agreed to exchange envoys.  In a statement, Sudan’s foreign ministry said Monday “the US government approved the nomination of Nour Eddin Satti as an ambassador and plenipotentiary of the Republic of Sudan.”  Satti is a veteran diplomat who served as Sudan’s ambassador to France in the 1990s and later worked with United Nations peacekeeping missions in Congo and Rwanda.  Sudan installed a civilian-led government in the Eastern African nation last September 2019  following the overthrow of long-time authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir.  Sudan named Hamdok as prime minister, who then formed the country’s first Cabinet since  al-Bashir was ousted last April.

Hamdok Urges the US to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism 

Speaking at the UN General Assembly last September, Hamdok  told the UN delegations it is time the U.S. drop the African nation from its list of sponsors of terrorism, saying  Sudan inherited international sanctions, but remains on the list.  However, “it was the former regime that supported terrorism”, he explained, not Sudan’s people.