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Sudan Tribune

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Sudan threatens to close US embassy

KHARTOUM, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Sudan on Tuesday threatened to close the U.S. embassy in Khartoum by the end of October unless the United States helped its Washington mission open a bank account to solve a problem which had dragged on for months.

The U.S. State Department said it hoped for a quick end to the banking difficulties at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, which has been unable to find a new bank after its former bank closed its account.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters that banking arrangements for foreign missions was the direct responsibility of the host country and the United States had failed to solve the problem for three months.

Speaking after a meeting with the head of the U.S. embassy in Khartoum, he said Sudan’s deadline for the United States to sort out the problem expired on Tuesday, but the United States had asked for more time.

“We are waiting for more than three months and they are giving us excuses or (only) solving the problem partially,” he said.

“We will postpone the decision until the end of this month. If it is settled that’s ok. If it is not settled, there is no way that the Sudanese embassy will continue and on a reciprocal basis there is no way for the U.S. embassy to continue here also,” he added, without elaborating.

U.S. banks have been reluctant to work with embassies in Washington after U.S. regulators fined Riggs National Corp’s . Riggs Bank, which long specialized in serving the diplomatic community, $25 million for suspected violations of the Bank Secrecy Act that aims to prevent money laundering.

“We’re hopeful that a resolution to this issue (of finding a bank for the Sudanese embassy) will be arrived at shortly,” State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in Washington.

“I think we’re close to a deal (with a private U.S. bank),” added a U.S. official who asked not to be named.

Sudan has accused the United States of supporting rebels in its remote Darfur region, where fighting has caused what the United Nations calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Sudan’s Washington embassy has been the scene of many demonstrations against the Sudanese government’s handling of the Darfur violence, which the United States has dubbed genocide.

The United States lists Sudan as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” but the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Charles Snyder, said last month that Sudan was still cooperating on issues relating to international terrorism.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington)

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