The United States has said that a change of leadership was not enough incentive for it to remove the sanctions it imposed on Zimbabwe two decades ago due to “gross human rights abuses".
US state department official, Stephanie Sullivan, said during a senate committee hearing in Washington earlier this week that the Trump administration would neither lift its sanctions nor free up new money for Harare until the new Emmerson Mnangagwa-led government committed itself to implementing political reforms.
"It is not enough to say it is a new government. We are engaging the new government with an open mind but we at the moment, those sanctions previously imposed on the country still apply," Sullivan said.
Zimbabwe has repeatedly demanded that the US removes the sanctions, with former president Robert Mugabe pointing to these sanctions as one of the key reasons for the country's economic collapse.
