Mali: France urges deployment of UN troops
2013-02-07 10:15
New York/Paris - France on Wednesday formally asked the UN
Security Council to consider the deployment of an international peacekeeping
operation in Mali, once the situation on the ground allows French troops to
leave that country.
French Ambassador Gerard Araud said he had requested the
deployment for the first time to the 15-nation council and received assurances
from council members that they would study the proposal.
"French forces won't stay in Mali and there should be a
transition in the coming weeks before 'blue helmets' troops would be deployed,"
Araud said.
The UN is ready to deploy peacekeeping troops in Mali as
soon as the situation stabilizes in the country, which could be "fairly
quickly," Herve Ladsous, under-secretary-general for Peacekeeping
Operations, responded.
With 2 000 soldiers from the UN authorized African-led
International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) already on the ground in Mali,
the UN Security Council has yet to make a final decision on the deployment of
peacekeeping troops.
The Malian government will have to make a request, even
though there are "different views" in Bamako about the presence of an
international force in the country, Araud said.
But Ladsous said the fact that there are already AFISMA
troops on the ground shows that the operation would be welcome.
Terrorist centres
The development in New York came as President Francois
Hollande said French forces, which are currently leading operations against
Islamist militants, could start to pull out of the African country in March.
French forces would progressively hand over to an expected 7
700 African troops and Malian forces but would "continue to act in the
north, where there are still terrorist centres", French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius told Metro newspaper.
France began airstrikes against rebels positions in northern
Mali in January, after they began advancing south toward the capital Bamako
from their northern strongholds.
French and Malian forces have driven the rebels out of the
main urban areas they had controlled for nine months, but the insurgents remain
active in the desert hinterland.
On Tuesday, insurgents fired rockets at the outskirts of
Gao, one of three key northern Malian cities where militants were driven out by
French and Malian forces in the last two weeks, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves
Le Drian told Europe 1.
A Malian military official told dpa that French forces would
soon deploy from the ancient city of Timbuktu, which had been liberated last
week, to Gao, in order to boost joint forces there.
Meanwhile, some 1 800 Chadian troops, helped by French
forces, were guarding positions in Kidal, about 350 kilometres north of Gao.
Kidal is currently under the control of the Tuareg
separatist Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a secular group which
has welcomed French intervention.
Minor injuries
According to Malian military sources, the MNLA had started
negotiations with the al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents to free the seven French
hostages they were suspected to be holding.
"I believe that France wants to use [contacts with the
MNLA] to locate its nationals taken hostage by armed groups," said a
Malian army officer speaking on condition of anonymity.
The French hostages are believed to be held by Islamists in
the mountainous area around Kidal.
Kidal had been under the control of the homegrown insurgent
group Ansar Dine - allied with the jihadist al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim)
-since June 2012. The MNLA retook the city last week as France launched
airstrikes on Islamist positions.
Le Drian has said that "several hundred" militants
had been killed since the offensive began on 11 January, mostly in airstrikes.
France lost one helicopter pilot on the first day of
fighting and also had "two or three" minor injuries, he said.
- SAPA
