在最后一分钟救球唐纳德·特朗普总统特朗普政府提出向911袭击的受害者支付赔偿金据两位熟悉谈判的消息人士透露，美国将提供7亿美元资金，以停止对这个非洲国家的索赔。
作为回应，律师为9/11消息人士称，索赔人说他们想要高达40亿美元，这是一个政府和参议院共和党人拒绝的过高价格。
此前没有报道过的谈判将于周五晚些时候继续进行，这表明特朗普政府愿意尽最大努力挽救与苏丹的协议，以实现与美国的关系正常化以色列并赔偿另一批美国恐怖主义受害者——那些死伤者在1998年大使馆爆炸案中。
前国务院和中央情报局官员卡梅伦·哈德森(Cameron Hudson)在谈到政府时说:“这一整集只是向你展示，一切都是为了一项声明而计划的，现在他们正试图根据他们宣布的内容逆转一项协议。”“这就是现在国际外交的运作方式。”
苏丹被发现对窝藏基地组织成员负有责任，他们对肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚的大使馆袭击事件负有责任。但还没有发现它在9/11事件中发挥了作用，这使得政府提供的数亿美元纳税人资金变得更加非同寻常。
美国国务院以正在进行的谈判为由拒绝置评。
美国和苏丹在11月签署了一项协议，以解决苏丹对1998年袭击的判决，这次袭击总额为102亿美元。作为苏丹同意支付3.35亿美元的交换条件，美国取消了对该国的支持恐怖主义国家称号——这是美国阻止世界银行和国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)援助的最严格制裁——并承诺与国会合作，通过立法恢复苏丹的“合法和平”，这意味着苏丹不能作为主权国家被起诉。
但纽约州参议员查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)和新泽西州参议员鲍勃·梅嫩德斯(Bob)数月来一直阻挠这项立法，称9/11索赔人的诉讼必须得到保护。上周，两人领导国会民主党人向政府提出了两项决议，多方本周争相达成一项。
据两位消息人士透露，国会将于下周休会，使一项协议的时间不多了，并危及特朗普在1月第一周与苏丹和以色列举行联合签署仪式的计划。
喀土穆也有压力，一个脆弱的权力分享政府正试图引导该国摆脱奥马尔·巴希尔30年的压迫统治，奥马尔·巴希尔是去年通过大规模示威被迫下台的强人。过渡政府正在努力应对高通胀、食品和燃料短缺、政治不稳定，现在新冠肺炎迫切需要美国和国际投资。
特朗普本周提出这一提议之前，围绕修改美国法律进行了数周的谈判，以允许9/11索赔以其他方式继续进行。但是一群受害者的律师拒绝了，因为这将削弱他们的案件，特别是现在支持恐怖主义的国家将被取消。那一步，10月启动据一位知情人士透露，将于周一敲定。
“我们坚决支持苏丹向民主的成功过渡;舒默和梅嫩德斯周三在一份声明中表示:“让这项协议为恐怖主义受害者服务不应与这一目标相冲突。”他们呼吁特朗普和共和党人“站出来与我们合作。”
上周，舒默和梅嫩德斯提出了对美国法律的两项修改，这两项修改将加强9.11事件中根据《外国主权豁免法》或《FSIA法》或《反对资助恐怖主义者正义法》提出的索赔。
“我们9/11事件的所有客户都要求保护他们在法庭上证明自己主张的能力，当他们收到判决时，能够依法执行这些判决，”9/11事件寡妇团体的首席律师丹尼斯·潘塔兹斯(Dennis Pantazis)说。
但特朗普政府拒绝了这些提议，因为它们将违反苏丹协议。据消息人士称，美国国务卿迈克·蓬佩奥周五再次与苏丹最高军事长官阿卜杜勒·法塔赫·布尔罕将军进行了交谈，以了解苏丹政府是否会接受对苏丹反恐战略的修改，但他们拒绝了FSIA的调整，因为他们仍将被视为恐怖主义国家。
“在未来的几年里，他们承受不起恐怖分子的标签，”现在是大西洋理事会非洲中心高级研究员的哈德逊说。
政府还反对梅嫩德斯和舒默的提议，因为这将加强对沙特的9.11索赔。沙特是特朗普外交政策的关键合作伙伴，政府仍在游说以某种方式承认以色列，加入阿联酋、巴林、苏丹和摩洛哥。
这项被称为《亚伯拉罕协议》的努力一直在推动特朗普的外交政策，特朗普以以色列承认他史无前例地向阿拉伯联合酋长国出售武装无人机和F-35精英战斗机作为交换，截至周四，美国承认摩洛哥对有争议领土西撒哈拉的控制。
虽然奥萨马·本·拉登在苏丹驻扎多年，但尚不清楚苏丹政府是否帮助或促成了9·11袭击。调查袭击的独立机构9/11委员会在其2004年的报告中说，“看来苏丹政府没收了他的所有资产;他离开苏丹时几乎一无所有。本拉登在苏丹的资产也不是基地组织的资金来源。”
尽管如此，国会可能会通过合法的和平立法，其中包括为9.11事件的继续进行留出余地，让特朗普政府或即将上任的拜登政府挽救美国与苏丹的协议。
Trump admin offered $700M to 9/11 victims to save Sudan deal
In a last-minute pitch to savePresident Donald Trump's deal with Sudan, the Trump administrationoffered to pay victims of the Sept. 11 attacks$700 million of U.S. funds to drop their pursuit of claims against the African country, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.
In response, lawyers for the9/11claimants said they wanted as much as $4 billion, a steep price the administration and Senate Republicans rejected, sources said.
The negotiations, which have not been previously reported and continued late Friday, show the lengths to which the Trump administration is willing to go to save its deal with Sudan to normalize ties with the U.S. andIsraeland compensate another group of American terror victims -- those killed and injuredin the 1998 embassy bombings.
"This whole episode just shows you that everything was planned for an announcement, and now they're trying to reverse engineer an agreement based on what they announced," Cameron Hudson, a former State Department and CIA official, said of the administration. "That's now how international diplomacy works."
Sudan has been found liable for harboring the al Qaeda operatives responsible for the embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. But it has not been found to have a role in 9/11, making the administration offer of hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars more extraordinary.
The State Department declined to comment, citing ongoing negotiations.
The U.S. and Sudan signed a deal in November to settle a judgment against Sudan for the 1998 attacks, which totaled $10.2 billion. In exchange for Sudan agreeing to pay $335 million, the U.S. removed its state sponsor of terrorism designation on the country -- the strictest U.S. sanctions that block assistance from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund -- and committed to working with Congress to pass legislation to restore Sudan's "legal peace," meaning it can't be sued as a sovereign state.
But Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., have blocked that legislation for months, saying 9/11 claimants' litigation must be protected. Last week, the two led congressional Democrats in proposing two resolutions to the administration, and the multiple sides have scrambled to achieve one this week.
Congress is set to adjourn next week, leaving the clock ticking on a deal and imperiling Trump's plans to hold a joint signing ceremony with Sudan and Israel in the first week of January, according to both sources.
There is also pressure in Khartoum, where a fragile power-sharing government is trying to steer the country out of 30 years of oppressive rule by Omar al-Bashir, the strongman forced out last year by mass demonstrations. The transitional government is struggling to deal with high inflation, food and fuel shortages, political instability, and now COVID-19 -- desperate for U.S. and international investment.
The Trump offer this week followed weeks of negotiations over changing U.S. law to allow 9/11 claims to continue in other ways. But lawyers for a group of victims have rejected that because it would weaken their case, particularly now the state sponsor of terrorism designation will be lifted. That step,initiated in October, will be finalized Monday, according to one source familiar with the matter.
"We strongly support a successful transition to democracy in Sudan; making this deal work for victims of terrorism should not be in conflict with that goal," Schumer and Menendez said in a statement Wednesday, calling on Trump and Republicans "to step up to the plate and work with us."
Last week, Schumer and Menendez offered two changes to U.S. law that would strengthen 9/11 claims under either the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, or FSIA, or the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA.
"All our 9/11 clients are asking for is preservation of their ability to prove their claims in court and, when they receive judgments, to be able to enforce those judgments under the law," said Dennis Pantazis, the lead attorney for a group of 9/11 widows.
But the Trump administration rejected those because they would violate the Sudan deal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke again to Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan's top military chief, Friday to see if the government would accept changes to JASTA, according to a source, but they have rejected FSIA tweaks because they'd still be considered a terrorist state.
"They can't afford to have the terrorist label hang over them for potentially years to come," said Hudson, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Africa Center.
The administration has also opposed Menendez and Schumer's proposal because it would strengthen 9/11 claims against Saudi Arabia, a key partner on Trump foreign policy that the administration is still lobbying to recognize Israel in some way, joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
That effort, known as the Abraham Accords, has been driving Trump foreign policy, with Trump trading Israeli recognition for his unprecedented sale of armed drones and F-35 elite fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and, as of Thursday, U.S. recognition of Morocco's control of the disputed territory Western Sahara.
While Osama bin Laden was based in Sudan for years, it's not clear the Sudanese government aided or facilitated the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission, the independent body that investigated the attacks, said in its 2004 report, "It appears that the Sudanese government expropriated all his assets; he left Sudan with practically nothing. Nor were bin Ladin's assets in Sudan a source of money for al Qaeda."
Still, Congress may pass legal peace legislation that includes a carve-out for the 9/11 claims to continue, leaving the Trump administration or the incoming Biden administration to salvage the U.S. deal with Sudan.
