Rally in favor of the putschists in Niamey on August 20. – /AFP
The two countries, led by soldiers, quickly showed their solidarity with the new Nigerien authorities in the face of the threat brandished by ECOWAS to intervene militarily to restore constitutional order.
The soldiers who took power in Niger almost a month ago announced on Thursday August 24 that they would authorize the armed forces of their neighbors in Burkina Faso and Mali to intervene on their soil. “in case of aggression”.
The foreign ministers of Burkina Faso and Mali, Olivia Rouamba and Abdoulaye Diop, visited Niamey on Thursday where they were received by Niger’s new strongman, General Abdourahamane Tiani. They have “greeted” signing prescriptions “authorizing the defense and security forces of Burkina Faso and Mali to intervene on Nigerien territory in the event of an attack”according to a press release read by Oumarou Ibrahim Sidi, the deputy secretary general of the Nigerien Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the end of the visit.
“Declaration of war”
Burkina and Mali, faced like Niger with recurrent jihadist violence, are also led by soldiers who took power by force between 2020 and 2022. Very soon after the July 26 coup in Niamey, they showed their solidarity with the new authorities in Niger, in particular in the face of the threat brandished by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to intervene militarily to restore constitutional order. The two countries had thus warned ECOWAS against any intervention in Niger, which would be assimilated to a “declaration of war”, which they repeated on Thursday. General Tiani for his part assured on Saturday that such an armed operation would not be “not the health walk some believe in”.