2023-06-30 18:47:19
The United Nations Security Council has announced an end to the mission in West African Mali. The UN body decided unanimously in a resolution on Friday in New York that the mission should be ended after a transition period of six months at the end of the year.
Majid Sattar
Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.
The resolution drawn up by France stipulates that the mandate for the operation, which has been running since 2013, will in fact be converted into a resolution mandate. The withdrawal of UN troops should be completed by the end of the year. Mali’s military government had demanded an immediate end to the UN mission in mid-June.
Baerbock: We are committed to an orderly deduction
The government under Colonel Assimi Goïta justified its request by saying that the mission no longer made sense. “It is impossible to keep the peace in a situation where there is no peace to keep,” the statement said. The UN mission reversed its mandate to support the Malian authorities. Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop accused the blue helmets of having become “part of the problem” and called for the mission’s “immediate withdrawal”.
Published/Updated: Recommendations: 5 A comment by Nikolas Busse Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 26 Claudia Bröll and Matthias Wyssuwa Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 5
The Bundeswehr, which is involved in the Minusma mission with more than 1,000 soldiers, is also affected by the latest decision by the UN Security Council. The Bundestag had already decided in May that the Bundeswehr mission in Mali should end at the end of May 2024, after an increasing dispute with Mali’s military government about flight rights for surveillance drones. Now the withdrawal from the country must be accelerated.
The background to this is tensions with the military government that has been in power in the country since 2021. Before the vote, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that a withdrawal mandate that focuses on the “security of people and the security of soldiers” is very important. The federal government is committed to an orderly withdrawal, she said on Friday during a visit to the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator.
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