TEHRAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th October, 2020) Sudan was finally removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism by paying "ransom" in the form of an agreement with Israel on ties normalization, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
"The White House's statement on Sudan is as symbolic as possible. Pay the ransom, close your eyes to the crimes against the Palestinians, then you will be excluded from the so-called 'terrorist' blacklist,'" the ministry said on Twitter.
The ministry noted that the US list of state sponsors of terrorism is as "fake" as Washington's countering terrorism efforts themselves.
US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Israel and Sudan had agreed to normalize relations in the latest step toward building peace in the middle East.
The Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Friday, citing a high-ranking Sudanese official that a US-Israeli delegation on Wednesday had held talks with the Sudanese authorities - including Sudan's Sovereign Council Chairman Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok - on normalizing diplomatic relations.
On Monday, Trump declared that the United States would take Sudan off its State Sponsors of Terrorism list after Khartoum paid $335 million to terrorism victims and their families in the US.
In late September, Khartoum and Washington reportedly reached a deal that Sudan would sign a peace treaty with Israel in exchange for being removed from the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
Sudan was blacklisted in 1993 for sheltering Osama bin Laden for nearly five years at a time when the Al-Qaeda terror group (banned in Russia) leader was involved in attacks on targets in the United States.
Sudan refused to recognize the State of Israel during the 1967 Khartoum Conference and both countries have had limited relations.
