U.S. to take Sudan off terrorism list

Sudan has agreed to pay $335 million to U.S. terror victims and families. If it follows through, President Donald Trump said on Monday, the United States will remove the African nation from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, allowing it to obtain international loans and aid.

Why take Sudan off the list? The Trump administration has worked to persuade Arab nations to establish diplomatic ties with Israel. Sudan’s transitional military-civilian government is expected to take steps toward normalizing relations with the U.S. ally. But Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, the top civilian official in the governing coalition of the majority-Arab country, has said the transitional government doesn’t have the authority to make such decisions about foreign policy. Sudan has been on the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism since the 1990s.

Dig deeper: Read Mindy Belz’s report on the progress toward peaceful Arab-Israeli relations.