The UN Assistant Secretary General for Peace Operations, the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Lacroix, is expected in Mali from this Sunday, July 24, as relations with the junta have deteriorated sharply in recent weeks. During his five-day stay, Jean-Pierre Lacroix will assess the extension of the mandate of the UN mission with the authorities of the transition.
With our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten
The visit was not planned, or at least was brought forward because of the crisis caused by the controversy over the status of the 49 arrested Ivorian soldiers two weeks ago in Bamako.
If Jean-Pierre Lacroix will be officially in Mali until Thursday July 28 to discuss the one-year extension of the mandate of the Minusma with the Malian authorities, it’s a safe bet that the boss of the peacekeeping missions is going to Bamako to calm things down after these two weeks of heated controversy, which ended in the expulsion of the carrier. word of the Minusma Olivier Salgado. The Malian authorities accuse him of having posted on the social network Twitter “ unacceptable information the day after the arrest of 49 Ivorian soldiers in Bamako on July 10.
Especially since the United Nations insists on not breaking the transition dynamic endorsed at the last ECOWAS summit last July.
Freeze rotations
At the heart of the visit, two subjects certainly: the UN may wish to present clarifications as to the status of the 49 Ivorian soldiers arrested two weeks ago. But also try to find a solution to the freezing of the rotations of the 14,000 men of the Minusma, even if it had been initiated by the transitional government several months ago.