Mali

The EU will leave its military training mission in Mali suspended, but will not terminate it for the time being, the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Tuesday (May 17).

Terrorism in the Sahel is a slow-burning, mortal threat, a senior United Nations peace operations official told the Security Council today as speakers expressed alarm about the recent departure of Mali from the region’s security architecture.

A colonel reputed to be close to Mali's ruling junta has been arrested following what the authorities describe as an attempted coup, two sources said Tuesday. The junta late Monday announced that last week it had thwarted a would-be putsch led by army officers and "supported by a Western state."

Mali said Sunday it was withdrawing from a west African force fighting jihadists to protest it being rejected as head of the G5 regional group, which also includes Mauritania, Chad, Burkina, and Niger.

Germany on Wednesday said it had agreed to raise its contingent in the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Mali to a maximum of 1,400 troops from around 1,100. The German government has also decided to reduce its training mission as part of the EU's deployment EUTM, halving its upper limit from 600 to 300. Most of the redeployed forces will be moved to neighboring Niger.

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Guterres said the force would need to be African, and "from the African Union, but with a Chapter Seven Security Council mandate and obligatory financing" – referring to a UN charter that permits the use of armed force in the event of a "threat to peace”.

Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe has agreed to act as a mediator in Mali’s political crisis as the West African country’s military government faces pressure to re-establish civilian rule, their foreign ministers have said.

Germany will end its participation in the European Union training mission in Mali but is ready to continue with a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country under certain conditions, Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Wednesday.

In a long-expected decision, Mali's ruling junta has pulled the plug on a number of military accords with France. French soldiers and European partners are on track to leave the West African country by the end of summer.