Mali PM: The preferred option is negotiation
Following trips to Algeria to meet President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and France where he saw Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Mauritania where he met President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, interim Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra met President Blaise Campaoré of Burkino Faso , the Ecowas mediator on Friday in Ouagadougou.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Mali-PM-The-pre...
Negotiations were the "first option" to solve the crisis in northern Mali, which is controlled by armed groups, he said following his meeting with President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso.
"We are not afraid nor ashamed of negotiating because we are dealing with fellow Malians, he told reporters.
"We said at the time that we were not necessarily for the war" but that "if the negotiation was not possible, we were ready" for a "war to end the war," he said.
Both Tuareg groups the Islamist Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad ( MNLA) are reported to have had meetings with President Campaoré. He has said to Ansar Dine that it must break off relations with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI).
Ecowas has a force of 3,300 troops on, standby to fly to Bamako where the transitional government is struggling to assert its authority against the former junta and its allies. Interim President Dioncounda Taroré is in France recovering from an assault on him by a projunta mob. When he was appointed interim president he gave a firey speech calling for war to recover the north of Mali from the Tuareg rebels. Everybody must be hoping that it does not come to that.
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"We are not afraid nor ashamed of negotiating because we are dealing with fellow Malians, he told reporters.
"We said at the time that we were not necessarily for the war" but that "if the negotiation was not possible, we were ready" for a "war to end the war," he said.
Both Tuareg groups the Islamist Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad ( MNLA) are reported to have had meetings with President Campaoré. He has said to Ansar Dine that it must break off relations with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI).
Ecowas has a force of 3,300 troops on, standby to fly to Bamako where the transitional government is struggling to assert its authority against the former junta and its allies. Interim President Dioncounda Taroré is in France recovering from an assault on him by a projunta mob. When he was appointed interim president he gave a firey speech calling for war to recover the north of Mali from the Tuareg rebels. Everybody must be hoping that it does not come to that.
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Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Mali-PM-The-pre...