Mali – Mali Governing Body “Open to Communication” with ECOWAS

Colonel Azimi Koida, the head of the Malian regime, said on Monday that he was open to dialogue with the West African community, while calling on his comrades for peace and “regression” after the regional body imposed sanctions on his country.

“While we regret the illegality, illegality and inhumanity of some of the decisions, Mali remains open to dialogue with ECOWAS to find a consensus between the lofty interests of the Malian people and respect for the fundamental principles of the organization,” he said. In a speech aired on public television.

He has not announced any new response, but he has not put forward any new plans to get out of the political crisis. “I urge you to remain calm and calm because we have chosen to be honest in taking our destiny into our own path by creating our own path. ECOWAS and UEMOA are responsible and we will do the same,” he said.

The West African Economic Community (ECOWAS) on Sunday imposed retaliatory measures, opening the country to a new era of great uncertainty after nine years of severe security and political crisis.

It vehemently endorsed the plan of the military junta that had ruled the country for years and brought the public back to power in defiance of its promise to hold elections on February 27. Guinea’s governing body, which borders Mali, has declared that “Guinea’s air, land and sea borders are open to all fraternal nations in accordance with its Pan-African wishes.”

In a statement read out on public television on Monday evening, the National Development Rally Committee (CNRT, consisting of soldiers) said that Guinea had “nothing to do with the decision of the Fourth Extraordinary Leaders’ Summit.

The military junta has already expressed its anger at a statement read on national television at midnight by a government spokesman in uniform. He denounced the “illegal and illegal” sanctions, accusing ECOWAS of allowing itself to be “instrumentalized by forces outside the region”, an explicit reference to some partners, mainly France, who are militarily involved in Sahel, but relations with it are growing. Has been severely degraded since 2020.

Following the embargo, the military junta decided to withdraw its ambassadors to ECOWAS member states and close its borders with these countries. ECOWAS immediately halted all business and financial transactions between member states and Malik, except for consumer goods and basic necessities.

It froze Mali’s assets in ECOWAS’s central banks and commercial banks in member countries and stopped all aid and financial transactions in Mali’s favor from the organization’s financial institutions.