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The United States will drop Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as July 2011 if Khartoum ensures two key referendums take place on schedule in January and the results are respected, senior US officials said on Sunday.

US President Barack Obama made the offer through Senator John Kerry, who recently told Sudan's leaders the United States was ready to "decouple" the issue of Darfur from Khartoum's terror designation to win cooperation on the January polls, the officials said.

"We like to consider this a pay-for-performance operation," one official said.

The US officials, speaking on background about Kerry's mission to the region, emphasized that separate US sanctions imposed on Sudan over Darfur would remain until Khartoum makes progress in resolving the humanitarian situation in its troubled western region.

But they also held out hope that the offer to end the isolation imposed on Khartoum by its inclusion on the US state terror list would persuade the Sudanese government to begin making the necessary concessions to allow the January votes to proceed as scheduled.

Sudan's two parallel referendums on Jan 9 could see southern Sudan secede to become Africa's newest state and decide whether the disputed oil-rich territory of Abyei joins the north or the south.

The plebiscites were promised under a 2005 peace deal which ended Sudan's long civil war. But preparations are badly behind schedule and the two sides continue to disagree on Abyei, raising fears the region could tip back into violence if the votes are mishandled.

The US, which has stepped up its diplomacy in Sudan, wants to see the votes occur peacefully and all related issues, including deals on future citizenship and the sharing of oil revenues, resolved soon.

Kerry, the powerful Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has made two trips to Sudan in recent weeks and carried Obama's latest offer to Khartoum this past weekend, the officials said.

The US State Department added Sudan to its state terror list in 1993, accusing Khartoum of harboring local and international militants including for a time al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Sudan is one of four countries on the list.

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（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Renee Haines is an editor and broadcaster at China Daily. Renee has more than 15 years of experience as a newspaper editor, radio station anchor and news director, news-wire service reporter and bureau chief, magazine writer, book editor and website consultant. She came to China from the United States.