Al-Qaeda on Thursday claimed the kidnapping of five Sudanese people in an internet statement, giving Khartoum 48 hours to break off diplomatic relations with Baghdad, close its embassy and withdraw its representatives.
"The foreign ministry has decided to close down its embassy in Baghdad and withdraw its diplomats there as of today (Friday)," Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim told news agency AFP by telephone.
On December 23, Sudanese authorities said six of its nationals, including the embassy's second secretary Abdel Monem al-Huri and four embassy employees, had been seized by unknown assailants while exiting a mosque in the Iraqi capital.
The sixth hostage, whom Khartoum had called "a friend" of one of the employees, was not mentioned by the group.
The group said it had "arrested five employees of the Sudanese embassy in Baghdad, including 'diplomats'", in a statement signed by the al-Qaeda branch, headed by Iraq's most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"Al-Qaeda in Iraq's Islamic court has decided to give the Sudanese government 48 hours to clearly announce it is breaking off diplomatic relations with the (Iraqi) government in the Green Zone, closing its Baghdad embassy and withdrawing all its representatives" in Iraq, it added.
Baghdad's Green Zone is a highly fortified centre which houses Iraqi government offices and the US and British embassies.
"Otherwise the government must assume responsibility for sacrificing its 'diplomats,'" added the statement whose authenticity could not be verified.
One of the five Sudanese who appeared in the video, who identified himself as the embassy's second secretary, asked his government to obey the kidnappers.
"I call on the Sudanese government to respond to the demands of the Iraqi resistance," he said.
The captors said in their statement that if their demands are ignored, then the Sudanese hostages "will join those who preceded them in having chosen to defy the mujahedeen on the territory of Mesopotamia."
The militant group headed by Zarqawi, who is Iraq's most-wanted man, has claimed numerous beheadings and murders of foreign hostages.
Most recently, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of two Algerians on July 27 after they had been kidnapped days earlier. On July 7 the group also said it had kidnapped and killed the Egyptian charge d'affaires in Baghdad.