Mali signed a ceasefire deal with Tuareg separatist rebels on Tuesday, paving the way for government troops to return to the northern, rebel-held town of Kidal before a presidential election next month.
At the heart of a region plagued by poverty and Islamic militancy, Mali won a 3.25 billion euros (2.7 billion pounds) Western aid package last month aimed at shoring up democracy and helping it recover from a coup and an al Qaeda insurgency.
The army had threatened to seize the town if no agreement was reached. It advanced toward Kidal in early June, wresting the village of Anefis from the MNLA Tuareg separatists in the first clashes in months.
The separatists regained control of Kidal, their traditional fiefdom, after Islamists withdrew following a French-led military campaign that ended the 10-month occupation of the northern two-thirds of Mali by al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
Mediators, including delegates from the European Union and the United Nations, have worked round the clock to salvage the ceasefire deal.
Mediators said a week ago that both parties had reached an agreement “in principle”.
However, Mali’s interim President Dioncounda Traore, sworn in after the military coup, last week balked at a draft deal imposing conditions on the army’s return to Kidal and he sent government representatives back to the negotiating table.
“The accord is ready to be signed,” Mali chief negotiator Tiebile Drame said in the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou where the talks have been taking place. “The interim accord will be signed this afternoon.”
Mr Drame told Malian state radio earlier on Tuesday that they had reached an agreement on all outstanding issues.
“We agreed that Malian forces will return to Kidal soon as possible, followed by the administration and technical services. Now what remains is to agree on the practical details of the deployment,” Mr Drame said.
“Everyone also agreed to implement the other key element of the consensus, namely the requirement that armed groups in northern Mali give up their weapons,” he said.
MNLA spokesman Mossa Ag Attaher told French radio RFI that they were working towards signing the deal.
There is widespread opposition in Bamako to any deal that would make concessions to the MNLA.
The group is blamed by many in southern Mali for opening the door to the Islamists with an uprising in 2012 and its leaders face arrest warrants for alleged crimes committed during their occupation of the north.
