DAKAR, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Troop rotations for the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali will resume on Monday, a mission spokesman said on Saturday, a month after Malian authorities suspended them. and accused the foreign soldiers of entering the country without permission.
Mali’s ruling junta suspended troop rotations for the nearly 12,000-strong mission on July 14 after arresting 49 Ivorian soldiers it said had arrived in the country without permission. Cte d’Ivoire has denied these allegations.
She said rotations would resume after discussions with representatives of the mission, known as MINUSMA, on how to coordinate troop deployments.
The July arrests highlighted friction between the junta, which seized power in an August 2020 coup, and international partners, who criticized the postponement of elections and security cooperation with Russian mercenaries.
Ivory Coast says the soldiers were deployed under a support agreement signed with MINUSMA, created in 2013 to provide security against Islamist rebels. The Ivorian soldiers are still in detention.
A MINUSMA spokesman said the mission and the Malian authorities had agreed on a simplified rotation procedure and that the mission’s request to resume rotations on Monday had been granted.
Mali’s foreign minister could not immediately be reached for comment.
Relations between Mali and countries providing military aid remain tense. On Friday, Germany said it was suspending its military reconnaissance mission, which provides intelligence to MINUSMA, after Malian authorities refused a flight permit.
Mali’s foreign minister took to Twitter to deny that the government had done so and called on Germany to join the new troop rotation approval mechanism. (Report Aaron Ross; French version Jean-Michel Blot)