DIPLOMACY/
ECOWAS: Extraordinary meeting on June 4 on Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea 

An extraordinary meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will be held in Accra, Ghana on June 4, 2022, on the political situation in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso. 

After several official and discreet meetings between the ECOWAS missions and the authorities of the three countries, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, the ECOWAS Heads of State will meet in Accra on June 4th.

Mali expects a lot from this meeting. The country hopes to see a lifting even of the ECOWAS sanctions. The authorities have worked hard for a favorable outcome of this showdown between ECOWAS and Bamako.

Abdoulaye Diop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mali, visiting Togo on May 4, 2022, announced that he had asked the Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbé, on the instructions of the President, Assimi Goïta, « to use his experience and his wisdom to help facilitate dialogue between the country and the sub-regional organization”.

Faure Gnassingbé will thus have to help Mali convince his peers in the sub-regional community, and more broadly, the entire international community for a compromise that will get Mali out of its current situation and strengthen the stability of the sub-region.

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President Faure Gnassingbé, facilitator in the Malian crisis was already in Dakar a few weeks ago. During this visit to the neighboring country of Mali, the political situation was on the menu of discussions.

Before being officially requested by Mali, the Togolese president had met in Abidjan on April 14 with his Ivorian counterpart Alassane Ouattara. He had begun to advocate for a review of sanctions against ECOWAS member countries that are in a Transition regime.

Mali has been waiting for the lifting of the WAEMU and ECOWAS economic sanctions since the decision of the WAEMU Court to suspend the execution of the said sanctions.

ECOWAS will also have to decide on the chronogram of the Transition in Burkina Faso. The country had asked ECOWAS for additional time beyond April 25 to continue consultations. A delegation from the sub-regional community stayed in Ouagadougou on May 17, 2022 at the invitation of the current authorities.

 »  The team which will be joined in the coming hours by the head of Ghanaian diplomacy, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey and the president of the ECOWAS commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, is responsible for assessing the security and humanitarian situation in Burkina Faso within the framework of the management of the Transition ”  had indicated the government in a press release.

In Guinea, the National Council of the Transition (CNT) had validated a timetable of 36 months for the Transition against 39 months initially proposed by the National Committee of the Rally for Development (CNRD). 

Will ECOWAS accept the Transition deadlines proposed by these three countries? Or will Burkina Faso and Guinea suffer the same fate as Mali »
Yaovi AGBEGNIGAN