In a Capitol Hill meeting between Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee and Sayed El-Khatib Director of Center of Strategic Studies in Khartoum, Sudan, the stage was set for continuing discussions on normalizing relations between the U.S. and Sudan.

Representative Jackson-Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) gave El-Khatib indications of her intentions of visiting in Darfur and Sudan prior to the CBC Legislative Week End, occurring September 23rd-26th, 2009 in D.C. El-Khatib and Hodari Abdul-Ali of the Give Peace a Chance Coalition urged the Congresswoman to witness firsthand the improvement of the general situation in Darfur. It was agreed upon between the meeting’s participants that the term ‘genocide’ was far from accurate in describing Darfur’s situation during recent years.

Sayed El-Khatib, an advisor to President Omer Al-Bashir, told Rep. Jackson-Lee that U.S. economic sanctions were hampering not only commerce throughout the country and international commerce with Sudan, but causing severe problems with implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan (North) and the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement (South). He said improved economic relations with the U.S. would make the unity of Sudan a more appealing option to Southern voters, as opposed to their separating from the North resulting in a split country. El-Khatib was also adamant that that Sudan be removed from the list of terror sponsoring states.

Hodari Abdul-Ali of the GPACC think tank says he is hopeful Rep. Jackson-Lee can lead the Congressional Black Caucus in new and more productive ways of approaching this issue. Sayed El-Khatib was in Washington D.C. for the tri-lateral conference talks that took place between delegations of the Sudanese National Congress Party, the SPLM, and the U.S. Government.