Heads of state from the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) may try again to meet with Mali’s junta leaders on Friday if security permits, after protests scotched a planned visit on Thursday, an official told Reuters.
“(The heads of state) are now likely to meet in Abidjan later today with the possibility they might return (to Mali) tomorrow if the conditions are auspicious,” the official said, asking not to be named.
He said Thursday’s visit to Mali by the presidents of Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger was canceled after pro-junta protests briefly spilled onto the airport runway.
Ivorian leader Alassane Ouattara “was in the Malian airspace, he turned back”, said a source at the Bamako airport. Burkinabe president Blaise Compaore was also no longer coming, said a security source.
The meeting between the junta leaders and the ECOWAS leaders was scheduled to hold in Bamako airport around noon on Thursday. The ECOWAS team was to also include the presidents of Benin, Liberia, Niger and Nigeria.
Speaking from an undisclosed location, Mali’s ousted leader Amadou Toumani Toure, who was overthrown on March 22 by renegade soldiers unhappy with his handling of a Tuareg rebellion on Thursday said that he was safe in Bamako and not being held by the junta.
West African leaders have already warned that the region’s troops are on standby if the junta fails to engage in dialogue.
