America shows Sudan's iron hand: Pay $330 million, drop off the terrorist list.

Mike Pomepo, US Secretary of State, visited Khartoum (the capital of Sudan) on Tuesday to stress US support for the new transitional government that took power following Omar al-Bashiri's fall last year, whose 30-year regime made Sudan an international front.

Pompeo, who also pressured for better relations between Sudan and Israel, discussed the establishment of sanctions with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdala Hamdok, the Guardian reports, Perskopi records.

The US has demanded gradually to improve relations with Sudan in recent years, but has insisted that important legal issues must be resolved before the country can be removed from the list of states that sponsor terrorism. North Korea, Iran, and Syria are also on this list.

Sudan has been on this list since 1993, and in this form there is a series of measures that should be tehagued as denying much needed financial aid from multilateral international institutions.

Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Ken in 1998 were the work of al-Qaeda, then led by Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan. More than 224 people had died and more than 40,000 were injured in those bombings.

The US courts had also found Sudan guilty of providing essential assistance in support of al-Qaeda when bin Laden had been in this country between 1991 and 1996.

But the ministers, opposition leaders and ordinary citizens of this country have expressed their disappointment over the multimillion-dollar payment the US requires. Some complain that it is unfair for the new reformist government in Sudan to suffer the consequences for the alleged dictator's wrongdoing.

Activist Mohammed Babier, 32, accused the United States of intensifying Sudan's problems: “We rejected the regime and brought it down. Now we have to pay for what he did wrong,” he said. /Periscope