After the rejection of the Algiers agreement by Bamako, the Algerian authorities fear the consequences on their security of a further deterioration of the situation in neighboring countries.
At the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, meetings are linked around the unprecedented episode of tension taking place between Bamako and Algiers. After the Malian junta officially announced the end of the Algiers agreement for peace and reconciliation signed in 2015 with independence groups in northern Mali, Algeria felt openly challenged and threatened.
A diplomatic source explains that “the end of this agreement, with immediate effect, weakens the country’s influence in the Sahel region and opens the way to the reconfiguration of alliances, in particular for the benefit of Morocco and Israel.” As proof : Rabat “hastened last December to offer an alliance and access to the Atlantic to the landlocked countries of the region, mainly to those led by regimes resulting from coups d’état”.
The formalization of the end of the agreement is part of a series of ruptures carried out by the military which took power by force in 2020, namely: “Their almost total withdrawal from the implementation of the agreement, the challenge to the integrity of international mediation, their designation as signatories of the agreement, duly recognized, as terrorist leaders and their withdrawal from Minusma. »
Threat on Algerian territory
Leader of international mediation in the Malian peace process, Algiers “believed in the promises of the new Malian leaders who came to power during the double coup d’état of August 2020 and 2021 who had committed to continuing the implementation of this agreement until mid-November, when the Malian army, accompanied by its auxiliaries from the Russian Wagner militia, recaptured the town of Kidal, a Tuareg stronghold,” continues the diplomat. This resumption of hostilities already greatly worried Algeria, which ended up understanding that it had been sidelined when, on December 31, the president of the Malian transition, Assimi Goïta, announced the launch of “a dialogue inter-Malian for peace and reconciliation”.
A change of direction hardly reassures the Algerian authorities, who fear the outbreak of a civil war on their borders. This could trigger an influx of refugees into their territory, thus increasing the risks of terrorist infiltration. Our sources cite the UN report leaked at the end of August 2023 which argued that the Islamic State had strengthened its hold on Malian territory. “Algeria, contrary to what it is accused of, has no hidden agenda in Mali. Its interest is the stability of the Sahel. It’s a question of national sovereignty,” summarizes our interlocutor.
If Algiers expected the decision of the Malian authorities to bury the peace agreement, it keeps “the channels of dialogue open with the junta and tries to convince third countries of the need to resume the peace process in Mali “. The talks held on January 29 on the sidelines of the Italy-Africa summit by the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the National Community Abroad, Ahmed Attaf, with his counterparts from Benin, Mauritania, Tunisia, Madagascar, and Côte d’Ivoire, fall within this framework.
