Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop on Friday defended the ruling military government’s growing closeness with Russia and rejected three options proposed by the United Nations chief to reconfigure its peacekeeping force in the coup-hit country, reported The Yahoo News.
Abdoulaye Diop told the U.N. Security Council that the country’s top priority is security and it will not justify its ties with Russia, which is providing training and equipment to the Malian military forces.
The foreign minister, however, did not mention anything about Russia’s Wagner Group, the private military contractor with ties to the Kremlin.
But the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ internal review of the MINUSMA mission earlier this week, noted that Mali’s longstanding security partnership with France and other Western countries deteriorated over concerns about Wagner Group troops operating alongside the Malian military forces.
Last year, France withdrew its troops out of Mali following tensions with the ruling military junta and the arrival of Wagner mercenaries. The French forces had been helping drive Islamic extremists from the country for nine years.
“Their presence is equated to regular abuse against Malian civilians and increasing obstruction of MINUSMA,” France’s deputy U.N. ambassador Nathalie Broadhurst told the Security Council on Friday. “This is not acceptable.”
Mali has been struggling to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012 due to which thousands of people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
In August 2020, Mali’s military led by Colonel Assimi Goita overthrew the president in a coup. Goita was sworn in as president of a transitional government In June 2021 after carrying out a second coup in nine months.
Foreign minister Diop told the UN council that Goita is completely committed to holding a referendum on a draft constitution in March, electing deputies to the National Assembly in October and November, and holding presidential elections in February 2024.
He said Mali’s military government remains committed to defending the territory of the country, protecting its people and implementing a 2015 peace agreement.
