[1] Sudan set out almost immediately to broaden its relations with Arab and African states and then the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Yugoslavia.

[1] By the late 1970s, the United States had replaced Britain as the predominant Western influence in Khartoum, a situation that continued until the overthrow of the Sadiq al-Mahdi government in 1989.

[1] British prime minister Tony Blair visited Khartoum in October 2004 but took a more critical position on Sudan's policy in Darfur as the crisis dragged on.

[2] However, by the next month, it was reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was asking officials to draw up plans for possible military intervention in Sudan.

[4] In September 2006, Prime Minister Blair said he would propose an incentive package for Sudan as part of a new initiative to end the crisis in Darfur and get United Nations peacekeeping troops on the ground.

[5] In supporting the United Nations Security Council resolution in 2007 to authorize the deployment of up to 26,000 peacekeepers to try to stop the violence in Darfur, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations, urged strong support for peacekeeping in Darfur, calling the war "the greatest humanitarian disaster the world faces today".

[16] In March 2009, Sudan expelled several major foreign aid agencies including Oxfam[17][18][19] and Save the Children[14] from Darfur in response to the extradition request of Omar al-Bashir to answer ICC charges.

[19][20] Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director, said of the ban "It will affect more than 600,000 Sudanese people whom we provide with vital humanitarian and development aid, including clean water and sanitation on a daily basis.

"[22] In April 2009, Oxfam and other aid agencies appealed their ban[23] saying that "The expulsion is already affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of the very poorest and most vulnerable Sudanese people".