Mali’s Foreign Affairs Minister Abdoulaye Diop on Tuesday said that the country’s military government would resort to self-defense if France continues to undermine the country’s sovereignty and national security, reported The France 24.
While addressing a United Nations Security Council briefing on Mali in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Diop reiterated allegations that the French government had violated its airspace and delivered arms to Islamist militant groups that have been waging an offensive in northern Mali for the past decade.
France has denied all the allegations. The relation between the two countries have soured since an August 2020 coup and France announced its decision to withdraw troops sent in 2013 to help fight the insurgency.
“The government of Mali reserves the right to exercise its right to self-defence… if France continues to undermine the sovereignty of our country and to undermine its territorial integrity and its national security,” Mali’s foreign minister added.
He called for a specific meeting of the Security Council to bring to light evidence regarding duplicitous acts, acts of espionage and acts of destabilization waged by France.
France’s permanent representative to the United Nations denied the “defamatory” accusations, defended its intervention in Mali as fully transparent and said the country had never violated any airspace.
Diop also denied human rights violations by the Malian army as reported by the UN and other groups.
The latest U.N. Secretary-General assessment and several other reports accuse Mali’s army and Russian mercenaries of abusing and killing civilians suspected of supporting the jihadists.
Diop called the allegations unfounded and warned against instrumentalizing human rights issues. He said the departure of hundreds of foreign troops from the Western African country would not create a security vacuum.
Other European countries have ended their military involvement in Mali this year, often citing the Mali’s military government’s collaboration with Russian fighters.
