N’DJAMENA, Aug 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Niger’s military-appointed prime minister made an unannounced visit to neighbouring Chad as West African states set talks for mulling possible military intervention to reverse his country’s coup and the United States and Russia urged a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, a civilian appointed by the military rulers who ousted Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26, arrived in Chad for a “working visit,” the Chadian government said on Facebook.
In a statement issued after meeting Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, Zeine said he had brought a message of “good neighbourliness and good fraternity” from the head of Niger’s regime.
“We are in a process of transition, we discussed the ins and outs and reiterated our availability to remain open and talk with all parties, but insist on our country’s independence,” he said.
Deby, a key player in the unstable Sahel, had flown to the Nigerien capital Niamey four days after the coup.
Photos later showed him pictured next to the detained Bazoum and, separately, with one of the regime’s leaders, General Salifou Mody.
Zeine’s unannounced visit came hours after sources in the region said military chiefs from the regional bloc ECOWAS would meet in Ghana on Thursday and Friday to discuss possible intervention in Niger.
The meeting – originally scheduled for last Saturday but then postponed – flows from an ECOWAS summit last week which approved deployment of a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger.
The option of force also came with the bloc’s insistence that it preferred a diplomatic outcome – a scenario that Washington strongly backed on Tuesday.
“I believe that there continues to be space for diplomacy in achieving that result,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters.
“The pressure that’s been exerted by many countries including through ECOWAS on the military leaders responsible for disrupting the constitutional order in Niger is mounting.
“I think they have to take that into account, as well as the fact that their actions have isolated them from the region and the world.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a “peaceful political and diplomatic” resolution to the crisis in a phone call with Mali’s junta leader, Assimi Goita, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
President Mohamed Bazoum’s election in 2021 was a landmark in Niger’s history, ushering in the country’s first peaceful transfer of power since independence from France in 1960.
His ousting unleashed a shock wave around West Africa, where Mali and Burkina Faso – likewise battered by a militant insurgency – have also suffered military takeovers.
ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States – applied a tough roster of trade and financial sanctions, while France, Germany and the United States suspended their aid programmes.
