In the Sahel Region, specifically in Mali, diplomatic tensions are escalating between Bamako and Algiers.
This latest escalation follows comments by Algerian Foreign Minister, Amed Attaf, who stated that the military option has failed in the fight against terrorism and that a political solution is needed.
In a statement released last Wednesday, Malian authorities described these remarks as interference in their internal affairs.
The Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it “learned through the press the remarks” of the head of Algerian diplomacy Ahmed Attaf, “commenting again on the Malian strategy for fighting terrorism”, in this press release which does not reproduce the incriminated remarks, attributed to Mr. Attaf.
The ministry says it has already denounced “the proximity and complicity of Algeria with the terrorist groups that destabilize Mali and to whom it has offered food and shelter”.
It “condemns with the utmost vigor this new interference by Algeria in the internal affairs of Mali”.
Bamako “recalls that the strategic options for the fight against armed terrorist groups, supported by foreign state sponsors, fall exclusively under the sovereignty of Mali” and its Burkinabe and Nigerian neighbors with whom Mali created a confederation after seceding from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), considered subservient to France.
He calls on Algiers “to stop using Mali as a lever for its international positioning”.
Algeria shares around 1,400 km of borders with its southern neighbour. Mali, a poor, landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, was rocked by two military coups in August 2020 and May 2021.
This political crisis goes hand in hand with a serious security crisis that has been underway since 2012 and the outbreak of independence and jihadist insurgencies in the north.