Military leaders say the Algiers Agreement was canceled with “immediate effect” because signatories failed to honor their commitments.
Mali's military rulers announced the cancellation of a 2015 peace deal with separatist rebels after months of fighting in the West African nation.
Military authorities said late Thursday that the so-called Algiers Agreement had ended with “immediate effect” due to the failure of other signatories to honor their commitments and the hostility of the main mediator, Algeria.
In a speech broadcast on state television, military government spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga said there had been an “increasing number of hostile acts, cases of hostility and interference in the internal affairs of Mali” by Algiers.
Algeria had led efforts to restore peace in Mali after the signing of the so-called Algiers Agreement between Bamako and armed groups predominantly made up of the semi-nomadic Tuareg ethnic group.
Last month, Mali summoned Algeria's ambassador for “interference” and “hostile acts” related to claims that the envoy held talks with Tuareg separatists without involving Bamako.
Rebel alliance group CMA said it was not surprised by the decision.
“We have been waiting for it since they brought Wagner, they expelled MINUSMA [the UN peacekeeping group] and we started hostilities by attacking our positions on the ground,” said CMA spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, quoted by the Reuters news agency.
“We knew the goal was to terminate the agreement.”
The Algiers Agreement began to weaken in August as fighting between separatists and government troops intensified amid the gradual end of a 10-year U.N. peace mission in the country.
In June, Mali's military government, which took power in 2020, demanded the departure of the UN mission despite facing frequent attacks by armed groups in the Sahel region.
Since the coup, Mali's military leaders have severed ties with former colonial power France, while seeking closer relations with Russia and the private military Wagner Group.
Mali has been wracked by violence since 2012, when armed Islamist groups took advantage of a Tuareg uprising fueled by accusations of government negligence and demands for greater autonomy.
