By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Mali’s interim military authorities have asked the United Nations to withdraw its peacekeeping force known as MINUSMA from the West African nation, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told a U.N. security council meeting on Friday.
The decision marks a major turning point for Mali, where MINUSMA was set up in 2013 to help stabilize the country after a Tuareg rebellion the previous year that gave rise to an ongoing jihadist insurgency.
Frustrations over the growing insecurity spurred two coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021 and the ruling junta has been increasingly at loggerheads with MINUSMA and other international allies including France.
Diop told the council there was a “a crisis of confidence between Malian authorities and MINUSMA.”
“In light of all of the above, the Malian government asks for the withdrawal, without delay, of MINUSMA,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Bate FelixWriting by Alessandra Prenticel Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)
