Algerian Diplomacy Is Looking To Restore Its African Dimension

Algeria directed its diplomatic efforts at the end of last week to its southern neighbor, Mali, aiming to consolidate the pillars of the peace and reconciliation agreement signed in Algeria in 2015, to avoid any new security crisis in this country, which would increase Algeria’s preoccupation with the stability of its southern borders.

While chairing a meeting of the international mediation group devoted to assessing what has been achieved within the framework of the peace and reconciliation agreement in Mali, Ramtane Lamamra, Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, stood in Bamako on the difficulties that limited the pace of implementation of the agreement and the means to revive this path as well, especially in light of the current transitional stage.

Lamamra’s visit to Mali culminated in the inauguration of the new ambassador to Bamako, Boudjemaa Delmi, a retired diplomat whose last assignment was in the Algerian mission in Geneva, as head of the follow-up committee for the implementation of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, succeeding the former ambassador, Boualem Chebihi, who assumed this mission during the past two years.

Lamamra also received, at the Algerian embassy, about twenty leaders of the movements that signed the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, and discussed with them the progress made in activating the main provisions of this agreement to bring peace and stability to Mali and preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State of Mali.

Regarding Lamamra’s visit to Mali, an expert in the Sahel region’s affairs, Mohamed Saleh Bentabboula, told Echorouk in a phone interview, that this visit aims to identify the developments of the situation in this country, especially the extent of the application of the terms of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in Mali, which was sponsored by Algeria which stood on the monitoring of its implementation.

This visit also aims, according to the expert, to assess the situation after the coup that overthrew the former president, Ibrahim Abou Bakr Keita on August 18, 2020, and the events that followed it, especially the arrest of those responsible for managing the transitional process last May, and to discuss the possibility of organizing elections with a credible presidential election, as stipulated in the road map for the transitional phase that was adopted in October 2020.

“What the Algerian diplomacy has been pursuing in recent times, especially since Ramtane Lamamra’s return to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a new approach to this sensitive sector”, expert Ben Tabboula said, based on giving the continent the attention it deserves, after about two decades of intended marginalization, by relying on the directives of the National Agency for Comprehensive Strategic Studies, and the National Agency of International Cooperation for Solidarity and Development.

Since 2012, the southern neighbor did not enjoy stability. It witnessed a rebellion led by the residents of the northern regions against the central government in Bamako, which resulted in a military coup that overthrew the elected president, Amadou Toumani Touré, then Algeria mediated between the parties under the auspices of the United Nations, which culminated in the signing of an agreement in Algeria that ended the fighting between the conflicting brothers, but the situation was not stable as hoped in light of the incidents that occur from time to time, which was behind Algeria’s keenness to embody the reconciliation agreement between the parties to avoid new security crisis.