It's time to engage Sudan's Islamists

In the latest issue of the influential Washington journal Middle East Policy, Harry Verhoeven and Luke Patey argue for a change in American and Western engagement in Sudan.

Sudan's Islamists and the Post-Oil Era: Washington's Role after Southern Secession examines two critical, inter-related factors shaping the internal deliberations and power struggles within Sudan’s ruling regime in Khartoum: Northern Sudan's economic future after the secession of South Sudan and the role of the United States and the international community after the end of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Verhoeven and Patey call on Washington to end its longstanding economic sanctions in Sudan, not, as some activists put it, to 'reward' human rights violations in Darfur or South Kordofan, but because in the current domestic and regional political climate, re-engagament could re-inforce gradual democratisation in a way that few other policy instruments can.

Read more here.