U.N. Security Council in Push for Mali Peace Deal
The U.N. Security Council on Friday urged Mali's warring factions to make progress toward a peace deal at upcoming talks in Algeria, following a wave of deadly attacks on peacekeepers.
In a unanimously-adopted statement, the 15-nation council urged the Bamako government and the six armed groups in northern Mali to "engage in good faith and in the spirit of compromise" during the talks, which open on Sunday in Algiers.
The U.N.'s chief of peacekeeping operations, Herve Ladsous, arrived in Algiers on Friday to help shepherd the negotiations.
A peace deal has taken on added importance following the series of attacks that have left 31 peacekeepers dead since the mission was launched in July last year.
Algerian-brokered negotiations yielded a ceasefire deal and a roadmap for peace talks in July but subsequent rounds have failed to generate momentum towards a final agreement.
The council urged the sides to focus on mechanisms to implement a future peace deal.
It also called for an end to attacks on peacekeepers and said the U.N. MINUSMA force in the north should be beefed up to its full strength of 12,700 troops from the current level of 9,300.
The peace talks were launched after Islamist groups occupied the desert north of Mali for ten months before they were ousted by a French-led military intervention in January 2013.
Source: Agence France Presse
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