It’s an important day for U.S.-Sudan relations, as you know if you’ve been following the extensive weekend coverage, which included front page stories in both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
For the past seven months, President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Maj. General Scott Gration, has led the U.S. response to Sudan’s multiple challenges – ongoing humanitarian crisis and political deadlock in Darfur, growing tension between North and South over a 2005 peace deal that is largely unimplemented, and increasing violence in the South in which Khartoum seemingly has a hand. Absent an official policy line, General Gration has had the leeway to implement an approach that many longtime Sudan watchers, including Enough, feel is inappropriately soft on Khartoum.
Today, at 9 a.m. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and General Gration will unveil the official U.S. policy toward Sudan, which is said to call for a mixture of “incentives and pressures” and enables the U.S. to take a more conciliatory stance toward Khartoum if verifiable progress is made toward tackling its various challenges.
I’ll be there providing live updates via Twitter @laura4Enough. Follow me, and tune in later today for the full report from the briefing and analysis of the new policy.