Algeria intends to play facilitating role in crisis between Mali and ECOWAS
Bamako, ,Mali (PANA) - Algeria intends to play a facilitating role to find a solution to the crisis between Mali and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), an official source told PANA here Tuesday.
Algeria's special envoy for the Sahel, Delmi Boudjemaa, said this when he was received by the president of the Transition in Mali, Colonel Assimi Goita.
At the end of his meeting, Mr. Boudjemaa, bearer of a message from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to the President of the Transition, said: "We felt that the time has come, after the extremely harsh sanctions that have been imposed on Mali, to ensure that we can play this role of facilitator."
The objective of this Algerian mediation, he said, "is to allow the African brothers to sit down around a table and have a calm dialogue on the best way to approach the problems and to resolve them".
Algeria's Special Envoy for the Sahel, who is also president of the Follow-up Committee of the Agreement for Peace and National Reconciliation in Mali, resulting from the Algiers process (CSA), revealed that his country's proposal consisted of extending the Transition in Mali by 16 months to allow the authorities to organize credible elections.
He stressed that this proposal, made during the last meeting of the Peace and Security Council (PSC), had been endorsed.
It includes, according to the Algerian diplomat, "two extremely important paragraphs, proposed and accepted by the PSC and the African Union (AU), which can serve as a working basis" for this consultation.
He continued that the Algerian mediation was part of a logic of dialogue, consultation to avoid blockage or confrontation that could harm the interests of the Sahel-Saharan region.
According to him, "if this facilitation is accepted, it is clear that we are going to accompany it with measures that would consist in suspending the sanctions against Mali".
He revealed that the Algerian authorities were in daily contact with the members of ECOWAS to ensure that this facilitation was accepted, that it could work on the basis of the principles that were those of Mali and other countries of the sub-regional organization.
"Algeria attaches great importance to the security, stability, unity and preservation of the territorial integrity of Mali. But also to the sovereignty and independence of its political decisions," Mr. Boudjemaa said.
He indicated that his mission was part of the normal consultations between two brotherly countries which had "good and promising historical relations".
It would be recalled that on 9 January, ECOWAS, during an extraordinary summit of heads of state, imposed sanctions on Mali, whose transitional authorities notified the sub-regional organization that it was impossible to organize general elections on 27 February 2022.
These sanctions included the closure of the borders of ECOWAS member states with Mali, the freezing of Mali's assets at the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), and the suspension of all aid to Mali.
-0- PANA GT/IS/BBA/RA 25Jan2022
