Second extraordinary ECOWAS summit on Mali opens Friday
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) - The Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) opened their second extraordinary summit by videoconference on the crisis in Mali .
The meeting is the logical continuation of the previous meeting of August 20, 2020 "called urgently as soon as we had the information on the serious events which occurred in this brother country", declared Mahamdou Issoufou, the president of Niger and Chairman of ECOWAS.
"For a country, the putsch is a serious disease. To cure it, only one prescription: sanctions. It is certainly bitter, but is it not so in medicine, for many diseases?" he questioned.
He indicated that from the report which was sent to him, it appears that the junta agrees to let President Kéita return to his home with the appropriate security for a former Head of State as well as the possibility of receiving the doctor of his choice and to go abroad for his medical check-up.
It also emerges that President Kéita confirmed to the ECOWAS delegation that he voluntarily resigned, convinced that this decision is necessary for peace and stability in Mali.
"If we can consider that the question of the release of President Ibrahim Boubacar Kéita and that of his restoration in office are thus resolved, it is not the same for that of the return to constitutional order which supposes the return of soldiers to their barracks," said the President of Niger.
He stressed that the junta intends to keep power for three years in order to restore state institutions on a basis that guarantees their stability. In other words, the military refuses to return to the barracks while the country is at war, which requires, more than ever, that the army concentrates on its traditional mission to guard the country against external aggression instead of seeking to exploit the current institutional gap to push its advantage, he noted.
"We are going to examine the report provided by our mediators, and consider the decisions to be taken, for a definitive exit from the crisis," wrote Burkinabè President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré who received a delegation from the military junta on Thursday in Ouagadougou.
-0- PANA TNDD/BEH/KND/VAO 28Aug2020
