Sudan announced on Sunday (February 2) that the head of its Sovereign Council has been invited to an official visit to Washington. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan received this invitation during a telephone interview on Sunday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said the Sovereign Council, a body ensuring the transition after the removal of President Omar Al- Bachir in April 2019. General Burhan "Claimed that he perform(All) this visit soon », according to a statement which did not provide further details.
This is the first time in three decades that Washington has invited a senior Sudanese official. Relations between Washington and Khartoum deteriorated soon after Mr. Bachir came to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989. The United States has increased economic sanctions against Sudan since 1997 , registered on the American black list of "States supporting terrorism" since 1993, the founder of Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, having lived in Khartoum between 1992 and 1996.
Washington finally lifted its sanctions in October 2017, while keeping Sudan on its blacklist. But discussions are underway to withdraw it since the removal of Mr. Bachir, arrested in April by the army under pressure from a protest movement which had started four months earlier. Several American delegations and senators have visited Sudan in recent months.
The Sovereign Council was established in August. It is a civil majority body called to oversee the transition, under the terms of an agreement between the military council, which had succeeded Mr. Bachir, and the leaders of the dispute.
