Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok (R) meets with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (L), D-NY, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, the US, on December 4, 2019. (File photo by AFP)

Sudan has appointed its first ambassador to the United States in over 25 years, amid warming ties between the two countries following the fall of president Omar al-Bashir in April last year.

Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that US authorities had approved the country’s pick of Noureldin Sati, a veteran diplomat, as ambassador to Washington.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in December last year that the two countries would exchange ambassadors.

Both countries had lowered their diplomatic representation to the charge d’affaires level for over a quarter of century.

A US State Department representative said it did not have specific information about the timing of the appointment of a US ambassador to Khartoum, but hailed the December decision as a historic step.

The US government added Sudan to its list of so-called state sponsors of terrorism in 1993, which has put Sudan’s economic recovery on a bumpy road.

Last year, a top State Department official said Sudan might be removed from the list but the US Congress needed to ratify such an action.

The State Department representative said the two countries were still engaged in active discussions about Sudan’s removal from the list.

In April last year, the Sudanese military ousted and then imprisoned Bashir in a military coup after some four months of widespread protests against him over dire economic conditions and the soaring prices of basic commodities.

The African country is being governed by a transitional administration that took power last August.

SOURCE: PRESS TV