West African leaders on Sunday said they have decided to maintain sanctions on Mali for now but they could lift them if Mali’s military rulers speeded up plans to hand back power to a civilian government, reported CGTN Africa.
The statement came after leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met on Saturday to decide if more sanctions needed to be put on Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali where the military has seized power and does not have a concrete plan to return to a civilian government.
All three countries are currently suspended from the 15-nation West African bloc, which imposed strict economic and financial sanctions on Mali in January and is threatening to do likewise to Burkina and Guinea.
The ECOWAS summit failed to reach a decision on Friday. The decision has now been pushed back to the next summit which is scheduled for July 3.
On Sunday, the African leaders issued a statement saying they would uphold the punitive measures imposed on Mali on January 9 but they will continue talking to the military junta in Bamako with a view to reaching an agreement to ensure a gradual lifting of the sanctions.
They said the lifting of sanctions would depend on the junta’s efforts to accelerate the transition to democratic rule. The military initially said it would hold on to power for five years but after ECOWAS imposed sanctions reduced that to two.
The West African bloc has called for the military to leave office within a maximum of 16 months.
In the statement, the region’s leaders again demanded Burkina and Guinea come up with “an acceptable transition timetable”. Both military ruling bodies plan to cling to power for three years.
On Saturday, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said the West African bloc’s objective has always been to find ways to help these countries return to constitutional order.
