Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey on Tuesday met Ivory Coast’s officials in Abidjan for talks on 49 Ivorian soldiers who were arrested in Mali earlier this month, reported The BBC.
The development comes after Mali’s military chief Col Assimi Goita on Monday said he is open to dialogue to resolve the issue. He demanded the Togolese government to lead a mission between the two countries to help resolve the situation.
Mali’s military government arrested 49 Ivorian soldiers when they arrived at the airport in Bamako on suspicion of being mercenaries. The ruling junta claimed that the soldiers were in possession of weapons and ammunition of war “without a mission order.”
The arrest of the soldiers led to tensions between Mali and Ivory Coast, which believes that its soldiers were arrested “unjustly.”
The Ivorian government insisted that the troops were there to support the UN mission, known as Minusma, under an agreed contract between the two countries. But the Malian military junta said its foreign ministry was not informed of the deployment.
On Tuesday, the Togolese foreign minister indicated that the Ivorian president and the Malian junta leaders wanted to preserve peace between their nations, according to a statement.
The statement added that President Alassane Ouattara expressed his gratitude to the minister for the initiative to find a resolution to the matter. Ivory Coast has been calling for the immediate release of its soldiers.
Last week, the Ivorian National Security Council said that the troops were deployed as part of a security and logistics support contract signed with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali in July 2019.
The statement added that the soldiers were the eighth rotation sent to Mali under the convention and their mission order had been sent to airport authorities and the military government before arrival.
Mali witnessed two recent military coups, one in August 2020 and the other in May 2021, creating a political crisis that coincides with an ongoing security crisis.
