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Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger insist that comments by Kiev officials following the killing of a Malian soldier show support for African jihadists
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have written to the UN Security Council calling for action against Ukraine, accusing it of participate The rebel attacks killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian military contractors.
In the United letter In a statement to the president of the UN Security Council issued on Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the three member states of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) cited comments made by Ukrainian officials after the late July attacks as evidence of Kiev’s support for terrorism in Africa.
“We call on the Security Council … to take appropriate measures to counter these subversive actions, which strengthen the power of terrorist groups in Africa and embody the involvement of foreign sponsors in the expansion of terrorism in the region,” the ministers wrote.
Ukraine has been at the centre of a diplomatic storm in West Africa after Tuareg rebels ambushed a military convoy carrying members of the Wagner Group private military company and the Bamako Defense Force in the village of Tinzaouaten in northern Mali earlier this month. Ukrainian officials claimed that the militants had carried out a “successful” operation using information provided by Kyiv’s Military Intelligence Service (HUR) and warned that “more operations will come in the future”.
Ukraine’s comments angered Bamako and its West African neighbors, who accused it of backing aggression against Mali, which has been mired in a jihadist insurgency for more than a decade. ECOWAS also condemned Ukraine’s comments and warned against “foreign interference” in peace and security in the region. Mali’s military junta and its allies in Niger responded by severing diplomatic ties with Ukraine. Kiev denied the allegations, claiming African countries made a “hasty” decision without evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the attacks.
In their latest move against Kyiv, military authorities in Bamako, Niamey and Ouagadougou called the comments by Ukrainian officials “extremely serious” and beyond the “range of foreign interference.”
“These actions also violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our countries… and are blatant violations of the UN Charter and relevant international conventions,” the letter read.
The three landlocked African countries have been plagued by armed violence for years, and a decade of French military operations has failed to resolve the problem. The three countries under military rule have severed defense ties with former colonial power France and recently established the African Union to support each other against external aggression and fight unrest. The alliance seeks to strengthen security cooperation with Russia in response to the situation.
（RT.com）
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