NIAMEY – The West African bloc ECOWAS rejected the proposal via Niger’s mutinous squaddies for a three-year transition to democratic rule, with a commissioner describing the sluggish timeline as a provocation.
The door for international relations with Niger’s junta remained open however the bloc is no longer going to interact in drawn-out talks that lead nowhere, Abdel-Fatau Musah, the ECOWAS commissioner for peace and safety, informed The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.
“It is the belief among the ECOWAS heads of state and also the commission that the coup in Niger is one coup too many for the region and if we allow it then we are going to have a domino effect in the region and we are determined to stop it,” Musah mentioned. While direct talks and backchannel negotiations are ongoing, he mentioned the door to international relations wasn’t open indefinitely.
“We are not going to engage in long, drawn out haggling with these military officers … We went down that route in Mali, in Burkina Faso and elsewhere, and we are getting nowhere,” Musah mentioned.
His feedback got here days after an ECOWAS delegation met the pinnacle of Niger’s army regime, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, for the primary time because the mutinous squaddies ousted President Mohamed Bazoum in July.
After remaining week’s meetng, Musah mentioned the ball is now within the junta’s courtroom.
The junta has been preserving Bazoum and his spouse and son underneath space arrest, and ECOWAS has demanded Bazoum be freed and constitutional order restored.
ECOWAS has used Niger as a pink line towards additional coups after a number of within the area, together with two each and every in Mali and Burkina Faso since 2020.
The bloc has imposed critical financial and commute sanctions and threatened using army power if Bazoum is no longer reinstated, however the junta has dug in. It has appointed a new govt and mentioned it is going to go back the rustic to democratic rule inside a number of years.
Niger used to be observed as one of the vital remaining democratic international locations within the Sahel area under the Sahara Desert that Western countries may just spouse with to overcome again a rising jihadi insurgency related to al-Qaida and the Islamic State team. France, different European international locations and the United States have poured loads of tens of millions of bucks into offering apparatus and coaching for Niger’s army and when it comes to France have carried out joint operations.
Since the coup the ones army operations had been suspended whilst either side come to a decision what to do. France and the U.S. have some 2,500 army staff within the nation and the U.S. operates two key drone and counter-terror bases.
Musah mentioned ECOWAS used to be no longer discussing army plans with any exterior companions and the entirety it used to be making plans is according to the assets of member states. Earlier this month, ECOWAS mentioned 11 of its 15 member states had agreed to intrude militarily if talks did not paintings.
ECOWAS is banking on a aggregate of exterior power via sanctions and inside unrest inside Niger’s safety forces and the truth that Tchiani, the junta’s chief, met with ECOWAS head to head after a couple of makes an attempt, is a signal that the coup leaders are feeling the power, mentioned Nate Allen, an affiliate professor on the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
“Nonetheless, it is clear that the two sides remain very far apart and the risk of conflict is high,” he mentioned.