U.S. Foresees No Disruption of Relations

Reagan Administration officials said Saturday that they do not expect the overthrow of Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiri to disrupt what has been a smoothly functioning U.S. relationship with Sudan. But they acknowledged that they had little information about the military leaders who took charge in Khartoum or about their political orientation.

Officials stressed that the leaders of the coup that ousted Numeiri while he was flying to Cairo en route home from the United States showed no early sign of taking an anti-American course. They said that the Administration is continuing its relations with the government in Khartoum without interruption.

‘A Close Relationship’

“We’ve had a close relationship with the Sudan based on a convergence of enduring national interests. We expect that this relationship will continue,” said State Department spokesman Brian Carlson.

President Reagan, on vacation at his ranch northwest of Santa Barbara, was given a report on Sudanese developments by Robert C. McFarlane, his assistant for national security affairs, at 7 a.m. Saturday.

“U.S. policy has not changed. We are assessing the new government as we go forward,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters in Santa Barbara.

Officials appeared to be not surprised by the coup in the wake of 10 days of protests and strikes in Sudan during Numeiri’s absence, but they said they have little information about Gen. Abdul-Rahman Suwar Dahab, the defense minister and armed forces commander in chief who led the overthrow, or about any of his associates.

“They don’t have a political label that goes with them,” said one official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified.

Portraying the coup as one directed more at Numeiri, who took power in a coup on May 25, 1969, than at his pro-Western policies, one official said: “There were all kinds of constituencies that were anti-Numeiri. He had just run out of credibility.”

Touch-and-Go Situation

Speakes said that when Reagan met with Numeiri last week in Washington, he “was aware it was a situation that was touch-and-go at times.”

Sudan, wedged between Libya to the northwest and Ethiopia to the southeast, is a strategic ally of the United States and supported Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel in 1979, when other Muslim nations were ostracizing Anwar Sadat, the late Egyptian president.

When then-President Jimmy Carter created the Rapid Deployment Force, which has evolved into the Pentagon’s Central Command, Sudan offered important landing rights for U.S. aircraft near the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea shipping lanes, a State Department official said.

“It’s that friendly, cooperative relationship, combined with the strategic position,” that brought U.S. and Sudanese interests together, another official said.

Accepted Refugee Burden

In addition, the United States felt that Numeiri had taken on “a terrific burden” by accepting at least 1 million refugees from the drought in Ethiopia and in Chad, to the west.

The government of Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi, long opposed to Numeiri and his close ties with the United States, immediately recognized the new Sudanese government, and the official Syrian radio welcomed the change. Carlson said that the United States had found no evidence that Kadafi or his supporters were involved in the coup.

According to reports from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital was calm.

Carlson said that there are about 750 Americans in Sudan and that all are believed to be safe. At least two U.S. oil companies maintain operations there.

The American ambassador to Sudan, Hume A. Horan, had been in this country and was returning to his post on Saturday, the State Department said. However, the airport in Khartoum was closed and it was unclear how he would make his way back.

One State Department official, speaking on the condition that she not be named, said the Administration had felt earlier that if Numeiri could keep the support of the army, he could survive the challenge posed by the demonstrations that began one day before he left for the United States for an annual medical examination.

Met Reagan, Bush

In addition to meeting with Reagan while he was here, Numeiri conferred with Vice President George Bush, who had called on him in Khartoum in March. Before leaving Washington on Friday, Numeiri met with Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

The Sudanese government’s removal of subsidies led to a rise in the price of bread and other commodities, and those hikes touched off the protests. A week of demonstrations was followed by strikes by doctors and other professionals and eventually by a paralyzing general strike.

Removal of the subsidies was tied to efforts to improve Sudan’s economic outlook to meet requirements for assistance by the International Monetary Fund in tackling a national debt calculated by one U.S. official at $9 billion--a huge sum for a poor country of 22 million people.

After Numeiri’s talks with Reagan last Monday, the White House announced that it would free $67 million in aid. That decision was reached only after the Sudanese agreed to follow an economic austerity program demanded by their international creditors.