The Algerian ambassador to Mali returned to Bamako on Friday, more than two weeks after his recall by Algiers, linked to diplomatic tensions between the two neighboring countries.
The Algerian ambassador to Mali returned to Bamako this Friday, January 5, an advisor to the Malian Foreign Minister< said on Saturday an i=2> and a source close to the Algerian embassy in Bamako. Diplomatic tensions between the two neighboring countries led to his recall by Algiers more than two weeks ago. The Malian ambassador to Algeria, who had been recalled to his country as a reciprocal measure, is still in Bamako, but his departure is planned in the coming hours, said a Malian diplomatic source.
The diplomats had been recalled to their respective countries on December 22, two days after the Algerian ambassador in Bamako was summoned by the Malian Minister of Foreign Affairs for “unfriendly acts” and “interference” by Algiers in “the internal affairs” of Mali, according to Malian diplomacy. He was notably accused of meetings with Tuareg separatists without involving the Malian authorities.
Bamako had summoned the Algerian ambassador, on December 20, “to raise a strong protest” from Mali “following the recent unfriendly acts committed by the Algerian authorities, under the cover of the peace process in Mali », according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This summons also arrived after the reception in Algiers by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune of an important Malian religious and political figure, Imam Mahmoud Dicko, one of the few to dare to openly express his disagreements with the junta in power since August 2020.
Main mediating country
Algeria is the main mediating country for the return of peace to northern Mali following an agreement signed in 2015 between the Malian government and predominantly Tuareg armed groups, says undermined since the resumption of hostilities at the end of August between these rebel groups and the Malian army, after eight years of calm. Seriously agreement is Algiers agreement.
During his New Year’s greetings, the head of the junta, Assimi Goïta, announced, to “prioritize national ownership of the peace process”, the implementation in place of a “direct inter-Malian dialogue for peace and reconciliation”, which the Tuareg separatists perceive as “a way of pronouncing the definitive obsolescence of the peace agreement.
In response to the summons of their ambassador, the head of Algerian diplomacy summoned the next day the Mali ambassador in Algiers. Minister Ahmed Attaf reminded the Malian ambassador that “all of Algeria’s contributions to the promotion of peace, security and stability in Mali have always been based on three cardinal principles of which it has not < /span> deviated”, according to a press release from the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.never
These principles are “Algeria’s intransgressible attachment to the territorial integrity, sovereignty and national unity of Mali”, “the peaceful path” to “guarantee peace in Mali” as well as “reconciliation without exclusion.”
