MALI CALLS ON FRANCE TO WITHDRAW SOLDIERS “WITHOUT DELAY”

Fri 18 February 2022:

Mali’s ruling military junta has demanded that France withdraw its troops from the country as soon as possible and under Malian supervision.

In a statement broadcast on public television on Friday, a junta spokesman said the results of France’s nine-year military intervention in conflict-torn Mali were “not satisfactory”.

Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga said France and its European allies’ decision to withdraw their forces from Mali on Thursday was a unilateral move that violated military agreements between the two countries.

“In view of its repeated breaches of the defence agreements, the government invites French authorities to withdraw without delay, the Barkhan and Takouba forces from the national territory under the supervision of the Malian authorities,” Maiga said, speaking on national television.

France and its European allies fighting militants in Mali have decided to begin a coordinated withdrawal of their military assets from the country.

By June 2022, they agreed to lay out plans on how to stay in the region, particularly in the Niger and Gulf of Guinea countries, according to a joint statement released on Thursday.

Countries participating in France’s Barkhane counter-terrorism force and the Takuba mission, which includes 14 European nations, issued a joint statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the attitudes of Mali’s ruling junta had forced France to pull out and denied that its almost decade-long deployment had ended in failure.

France’s relations with its former colony have deteriorated in recent weeks, after the junta abandoned an agreement to hold elections in February and proposed staying in power until 2025.

President Emmanuel Macron said the troop withdrawal would take four to six months when he announced it on Thursday.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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