US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that extended the state of emergency against Sudan and retains the sanctions imposed against it for one year due to the crisis in Darfur.

Trump said, in a statement issued by the White House Monday: “Despite recent positive events, the crisis that arose as a result of the actions and policies of the Sudanese government and led to the declaration of the national emergency on November 3, 1997 ... has not been resolved yet.”

Trump added: “These actions and policies continue to represent a special and urgent threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. That is why I decided that it is necessary to extend the national emergency.”

The US President made it clear that this procedure extends the validity of the Executive Order issued on November 3, 1997 to declare a state of emergency against Sudan, and the decision announced on April 26, 2006, which said that “the conflict in the Sudanese Darfur region represents a special and urgent threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

On his part, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Trump’s order stipulates “to extend some of the powers related to Sudan that the United States relies on to implement our sanctions obligations within the framework of United Nations Security Council resolutions against the background of the conflict in Darfur.”

Pompeo noted, however, that this measure “does not reflect negatively” on the “improved relations” between the United States and Sudan and the activities of the civilian transitional government.

Pompeo also stressed that this step “does not affect in any way the decision and operations to withdraw Sudan from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.”

The 1997 order includes seizure of Sudanese assets in the American banking system.

It noteworthy that Trump had announced that he had decided to remove Sudan from the American list of states sponsoring terrorism after Khartoum paid compensation amounting to 335 million dollars to the families of the dead and injured in the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on the US President’s decision in a statement saying “this renewal has no effect on the steps currently underway to remove Sudan from the list of states sponsoring terrorism,“according to the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA).

The ministry clarified that “renewing the relevant decision is a routine procedure that takes place when its time is due, and that it is expected to be canceled directly with the laws that were enacted against Sudan over the past years.”