Following in the footsteps of 2024, the year 2025 begins with a new exchange of arms between Mali and Algeria. The transitional government in power in Bamako has let its anger explode against the latest statement, on December 30, by the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning the situation in this Sahelian country. “The military solution is impossible in the Sahel and the Sahara, particularly in Mali, because it has been attempted three times in the past and failed,” said Ahmed Attaf. He also advocated for the opposition movements, refusing to qualify them as “terrorist bands”, arguing that they had signed the Algiers Accords in 2015.
These comments were strongly denounced by the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Obviously, the undeniable successes of the armed and security forces of Mali as well as the pressure exerted on terrorist groups supported by Algeria are having difficulty getting through to certain Algerian officials who are nostalgic for a bygone past,” the department said yesterday. led by Abdoulaye Diop in a press release.
Mali “condemns with the utmost vigor this new interference by Algeria in Malian internal affairs (…) and recalls that the strategic options for the fight against armed terrorist groups, also supported by foreign state sponsors, are exclusively of the sovereignty of Mali.
Bamako does not want to learn lessons from Algiers
The ministry specifies that “Mali is neither asking nor taking lessons from Algeria, which has led, in the recent past, its fight against terrorism in complete sovereignty.” He invites Algeria to “refocus its energy on resolving its own internal crises and contradictions, including the Kabyle question, and to stop making Mali a lever for its international positioning”.
Since the withdrawal of the Malian authorities from the Algiers agreements, announced on January 25, 2024, arms exchanges between the two neighboring countries have been frequent. The latest occurred in September at the podium of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. The Malian Minister of State, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, had accused Algiers of offering “room and board to terrorists and renegades in disarray”. At the Security Council, Morocco supported the Malian accusations.
Morocco
