[ad_1]
written in Published in policy.
As is known to all, Niger and France have severed diplomatic relations since the events of July 26, 2023, and for eleven months Niger and France are no longer in perfect love relations. In fact, Paris has hardly supported the overthrow of Mohamed Bazoum, who is one of his trusted allies in the Sahel, and even used ECOWAS to intervene militarily in Niger. Subsequently, the new authorities in Niamey condemned the various defense and military cooperation agreements in force between the two countries. Niamey also declared the French ambassador to Niger persona non grata, ordering him to leave Nigerien territory as soon as possible. The new Nigerien authorities also demanded that France withdraw its troops from Niger. But before that, the mining agreements for the ORANO company to mine uranium remained intact, despite the strong calls from civil society to condemn these agreements. Recently, however, things seem to be moving faster, starting with the Ministry of Mines immediately evicting the management of ORANO/Niger from the building next to the Sultan Amir Mosque in Niamey, where it had its headquarters, a building built by ORANO on behalf of the State of Niger to house all the mining companies in the country. On June 20, the Minister of Mines, Colonel Commissioner Abarchi Ousmane, sent a letter to the management of IMOURAREN to revoke the license granted to AREVA in 2009 for operations around Imouraren. Fifteen years later, despite constant calls from the Nigerien side to the company to start mining in the surrounding areas in question, mining at the uranium field has not yet taken place. Finally, the war-weary State of Niger had no choice but to withdraw the license purely and simply from IMOURAREN and put it back into the national public domain. We also know that ORANO has unilaterally decided, without any justification, to close the COMINAK plant in 2021, which has been in operation for fifty years.
Today, the question that everyone is asking is whether ORANO is still welcome in Niger, especially in the sovereigntist period of the spring of “labou sannistes”. In a few months, we will know whether the State of Niger will continue to maintain its links with this French company, so that relations between our country and France have gone from bad to worse. If this happens, the State of Niger will entrust the mining of uranium to new partners. The names of two countries were announced: China and Russia. It should be clarified that according to the international convention on nuclear safety, only nuclear countries in the world have the right to mine uranium. However, China and Russia, as two of Niger’s current strategic partners, fully meet this condition, because both countries are nuclear countries. Therefore, the sites of Somme and Imuralen could fall into the hands of these two countries if they are not nationalized for the reasons described below. Even in this win-win situation, Russia will have the upper hand, because of its advanced nuclear technology and, above all, the country’s military presence in Niger. It should also be remembered that Russia is a uranium producer and has nuclear fusion technology, which puts it in a leading position among the nuclear powers, far ahead of China and France, competing with the United States. As we know that Niger’s uranium reserves are among the largest in the world, if Russia seizes Niger’s uranium mines, it will be a huge blow to the West. Especially for Europe, which already relies heavily on Russian gas and oil, if the supply of its nuclear power plants must also turn to Putin’s Russia, then its energy independence situation will become more complicated.
These are, in fact, the difficulties facing Europe, which depends to a large extent on Nigerien uranium, obtained through France! But all this is the inevitable result of the paternalism of Nigerien ORANO, which has been unable to establish a successful partnership in more than half a century of uranium mining in the poorest country in the world.
Now France can only shed tears because it has been condescending and failed to take its partnership with Niger seriously!
Khalidu Mecca (The World Today)
[ad_2]
Source link
