(Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters)The United States plans to ease some financial sanctions against Sudan in recognition of what the Obama administration says are small areas of improvement in fighting terrorism and other U.S. goals, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. The moves, which were to be announced Friday, would lift elements of a U.S. trade embargo in place since the Bill Clinton administration. The outgoing Obama administration is taking the very limited steps as a show of goodwill toward the government of longtime Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir, according to the official and others briefed on the decision. In 1998, the United States launched airstrikes on Sudan, a North African nation with a majority Arab population, over the harboring of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The shift, taken with just a week left in the Obama administration, partly reflects a view that ostracizing Bashir had not helped U.S. policy aims, people familiar with the decision said.

Source: Washington Post January 13, 2017 01:12 UTC